


Demeter's Pursuit of Happiness

by Meatbike344



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Blood and Gore, Dark Dimitri, Dimitri is not a good person here, Explicit Sexual Content, Jealousy, Letters, M/M, Murder, Obsession, Out of Character, Possessive Behavior, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Stalking, Toxic Co-Dependency, Unhealthy Relationships, Yandere, tragic ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:22:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28552290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatbike344/pseuds/Meatbike344
Summary: Felix means Lucky. It means Happiness and Good Fortune. But Felix, social outcast, resident quiet boy, and vastly unpopular among his peers never believed in his namesake.Dimitri means follower of Demeter, the nature goddess who raged death and destruction upon the earth when her love is snatched away from her. And Dimitri---perfect, untouchable, and beloved; president of the Honor Society, soon-to-be Valedictorian, and probably future baseball star was nothing like the grieving, murderous goddess.Felix and Dimitri were not true to their namesake. At least, that was what Felix believed. And it was not until the boy tried to cut ties with his perfect childhood friend that he slowly started realizing that Dimitri and Demeter were more alike than he believed. A witness to a blood chilling act of absolute and bottomless love.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 12
Kudos: 68





	Demeter's Pursuit of Happiness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pigmi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigmi/gifts).



_Felix ~_

A darkening terrified face of ecstasy, lit up by angelic song and spotlight from over above; a beast with a human face, creeping out of a darkened cave; the slow crawl of death, invisible to the living eye, seeping into the cracks and out like mist.

He is walking straight with the walls stretching out before him, bending to his will as the lights above flickered once before going out in a violent screech. Glass broke beneath heavy heels, echoing down the hall in a merciful alert to the one hiding in the darkness. Each crack was a snap against the forced calmness of his prey until there was nothing left but a cruel, hyperventilating fear. A smile upon the face of an angel.

_Felix ~_

A boy is standing heedlessly at the edge of a cliff, peering out towards the pitch black horizon—the back exit door is just in plain sight. He’s afraid to jump, afraid to step off and trust the cold air. But the predator is slowly stalking from behind, eyes flaring out like a burning winter moon in the night. There it goes, the small twitch of a smile—neither perfected for the audience or the boy standing at the edge, but for himself; the carnivorous grin ready to devour, the true mark of the beast hiding beneath an angelic porcelain mask.

_Felix ~_

The boy stayed motionless, a captive audience. He was not sure if the beast knew he was there, standing await on that cliff to jump; waiting nearby with a careful eye on the glowing exit sign right above his escape to the outer world. The predator’s face expressed nothing except contentment—he was a born actress and the boy was terrible at understanding theatrical symbolism.

But as those boots and the growing explosions of light above to complete darkness came closer until the shadows veiled the world all around them, there came the name once more; the sound emerging from a feigned human tongue masking its animalistic call.

_Felix ~_

The darkness of the cliff beckoned to him—demanded for him to jump, take that plunge before the jaws of death clasped over him. The red light of the exit light flickered in a warning as the glass cracked right next him. A hiss of the sweet call twisted on his back, boiling over with impatience and fury.

_Felix!_

The boy closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and jumped off the edge as the beast lunged at him. The door knob was just in his sight, the outside world beckoning him with the notion of eternal freedom with endless blue skies and miles and miles of broken asphalt. It was just the crack of the door, revealing the light before the hot, laughing breath stung against his neck like a thousand suns.

**_F e l i x._ **

**_W h e r e_ **

**_a r e_ **

**_y o u_ **

**_g o i n g?_ **

___________________

Felix. His father’s will to him; his name suggests joy, a life uninhabited by pain and suffering, and a figure marked by luck and fortune. Even the linguistic annotation of his name was bright and welcoming, inviting in warmth and love. However, the name hardly suited the boy in the mirror; this slender, pale creature with long midnight hair and rather lucidly red eyes who looked back at him from the mirror. Felix means happy but neither his life or nature was true to this namesake. Felix is light, an element he would never accept into his own heart for it was his antithesis.

Dimitri. The result of his northern lineage. The offering to a dead god. From ancient tongue, it referred to Demeter, a goddess who walked the earth, granting fertility and bountiful harvest. But her legacy was not one occupied in joy. At the sudden loss of love—made inaccessible and stolen away from her, the goddess roared with grief and the world turned gray and barren in cruel winter’s death. No life, no love, no feeling, and nothing but a wasteland—a reminder of love scorn. That was not a name that suited him, Felix thought. Dimitri was all light and warmth while Demeter grieved and became a tempest in her rage.

Neither boys were true representatives of their namesakes.

Dimitri and Felix were day and night.

They were two different worlds coming from two opposite ends like the synergistic vibrations of a newton’s cradle—always clinking, always responding, always in reaction, in absolute and perfect harmony. And never ending.

Even as children, everything existed in complete duality: the soft light of Dimitri’s bedroom and the shadows of Felix’s living room, the mirthless of Dimitri’s laughter and the low murmur of Felix’s voice, the bright of Dimitri’s golden crown and the murkiness of Felix’s black locks, the sparkling ice blue of Dimitri’s eyes and the setting sunset of Felix’s pupils, the splendor of Dimitri’s nature and the quiet demure of Felix’s silence.

But duality implies the nature of unity between two differing natures, and unity—for a time, was what the two boys had since their birth. The sweetness of those things still stirred Felix to this day with a faintness of melancholy, which he always swallowed down. Here, Dimitri’s world or rather, himself, was all so familiar to Felix in every single way like bone and blood beneath the flesh: how Dimitri held him during their sleepovers in the way where his cheek snuggled up against his, how they held hands every morning walk as if crossing a mighty river—afraid of letting go and getting washed from the surge of the current, how he usually dropped pieces of his meat onto Felix's plate nonchalantly.

It was love and family, childhood and joy, peace and sanctuary. Dimitri’s brightly lit realm of laughter, gold, and eyes of blue was so warm and stunning that Felix could not help himself but cling to it as a boy. Dimitri and his world was one where hymns for the goddess were sung and holidays were celebrated with family. A world of beauty, success and victory, truth and cleanliness, washed hands and warm bodies, nobility and good manners. His life was but a line, going up and high into the heavens—the path ahead was lit up and all was out in the open without a notion of surprise.

But that was not Felix’s world. Dimitri was not Felix.

His world was always meant to serve in opposition to Dimitri’s perfect, unsullied life; everything of this realm was different and the line of his life did not even remotely follow Dimitri up into that brightly lit heaven. His was appropriately tempered, ordinary, and grounded in reality: while Dimitri’s world was of one of celebration and family, Felix’s was one of survival and work; Dimitri smelled pleasantly of chamomile and peppermint while Felix always came home, sweaty and covered in rain and mud; Dimitri’s house was warmth, filled with baked cookies and bread, and Felix’s was strangely cold with the faint after-smell of leftovers in the microwave.

His life and world was not one of suffering—it was ordinary. It was ordinary and extremely human. Dimitri lived in a realm beyond his, casting a shadow so long and consuming, it was always night whenever he looked up the smiling golden haired prince.

Naturally, despite these two worlds bordering each other so closely like the reflection of a darkened mirror, Felix had already predicted the shift: the moment Dimitri, in his boyish handsomeness—shining bright with a perfected smile and eyes as radiate as the bluest seas, entered high school.

In that moment and the years following it, where all others bore witness to the resident prince passing through their halls with a sweet word of greeting, Felix had long lost access to Dimitri’s realm of light.

He had lost Dimitri.

___________________

Perhaps Felix should have expected it.

Dimitri was perfect in every way; every person he spoke to or even looked at was so drawn into the young man’s light that they could not help but stay close to him, taking in all of his beauty and warmth. He received nothing but perfect grades, was the president of the honor society, was on route to be the valedictorian, and got along with just about every single body in the school.

Throughout the first few years of school, there were entire webs of friendships being formed and evolved right in front of Felix’s eyes, connecting one person to another as they flocked to the young man’s side. This eventually widened to endless horizons, walls growing high and impassible when Dimitri made the baseball team tryouts. Sports was the permanent lock upon every social reputation and that was the last guard between the two boys.

And all Felix could do is watch the distance between them growing further and further until he could hardly register Dimitri’s light anymore from where he stood in the shade. It grew dimmer and dimmer and dimmer until the shadows around him engulfed his form.

When Felix opened his eyes, he peered upon the passing crowd of the students onto their next period classes, all moving a perfect, colorful blur. And right in the middle, Dimitri—the golden prince, stood addressing his audience.

He was devastatingly beautiful today—his hair having a sheen to it like an angel’s halo and the healthy pink tint his cheeks took on as he laughed at a passing joke; the others laughed with him in a strange hive mind reaction, radiating joy and goodwill all throughout the hallway.

Finally, Dimitri broke away from his spellbound followers for just a second. A second alone. His eyes scanned over the colorful sea of backpacks and headphones and landed right on the intense, heated gaze of Felix standing in the shadow of the lockers. Blue onto red. They stared at each other as though they were the only two people in the world. Them and them alone.

The corners of Dimitri’s pink lips pulled up into a blushing smile—one so unlike the ones he automatically gave to his peers and friends. This one Felix was used to: the one expressed in the intimacy of their childhood—in the sanctuary of Dimitri’s bedroom, covered in glow-in-the-dark stars and lion plushies as their small hands clasped together for warmth. It was a smile reserved purely for Felix alone—the silver newton ball swung left before clashing with the line.

Then the wait.

The energy of the vibration spreads across the cradle before hitting the silver ball on the other end. The reaction was to smile back—give his typical small wave, somewhat shy and demure, before slipping away. But Felix’s lips did not move; his hand did not lift from his side; the other silver ball of the newton cradle did not move in synergy.

In the eighteen years they had known each other, Felix decides to finally stop the automatically passing of their realms—the separation between light and dark starts now, and the end of their dance. In his mind, this was his loving mercy: Dimitri was too far away from him now and the last thing the golden prince needed was to stay around a poor, raggedy stray. He did not need shadows following him.

Felix did not smile. Instead, he grimaced deeply, turned his head away in silent rejection, and walked away to disappear like a phantom into the crowd. As he went, he could the wet sting of Dimitri’s eyes burn into his fading backside, brimming with confusion and betrayal. A silent _why_ echoing from Dimitri’s shining throne, almost in near tears.

The end of childhood began here. The line of two realms had long split into two different directions and all Felix could do is keep walking, even as the gaze held against his back turned dark and oppressive.

___________________

“I don’t want to partner up with Felix!”

It always stung, even after the one hundredth time the young man heard it from the dark corner of the room. This time, it came from a girl—one whose name he never cared to remember for she was one of Dimitri’s circle. A pretty girl with long hair and shining eyes, was cruel in her remarks to her sympathetic friend as she held up a crumpled slip of paper with Felix’s name on it.

The science teacher was doing his usual pairings for the dissection lesson where he threw everyone’s names into a jar thus deciding the partners. As expected, Dimitri’s name was the top contender with nearly everyone in the classroom save for Felix himself buzzing excitedly. His name, on the other hand, had a cursed air to it and the poor soul this week was the poor girl at the second row.

Felix kept his eyes down—he understood why no one really wanted to pair with him considering his own nature: he was hard to speak to. Not in the way of a frightened bird but closer to a snarling wolf; he hated small talk, hated just being around people in general, and typically made all partners work incredibly tense with his bouts of intentional silence and sharpened stares.

The poor girl received a pat on the back from her friends and all Felix could do is rivet his attention to Dimitri; the boy peered closely at the name inscribed on his slip. His mouth was frowning, displeased which was a rare condition for the young man; he reached over to his chosen partner—a girl who immediately reddened with joy at the fact that she was paired up with Dimitri, gradually went cold and slightly bitter from his silent words in her ear.

However, she quietly nodded—it was hard to turn down anything Dimitri asked for. He smiled brightly, recovering his lost ground quickly, before shifting over to Felix’s sullen partner on the other side. Upon seeing him approach, she shot up, nearly sending her metal stool down onto the ground. Some heads were turned and Felix tore his gaze away towards the window.

“Dimitri! Of course I’ll be partners with you! You must have noticed my incisions on the frog specimen last week and I---”

“Oh, I apologize,” the young man interrupted kindly in the way that made it seem natural. He shook his head and held out his hand between them. “I actually came to ask if I can switch partners with you.”

Felix’s heart stopped; he struggled to keep his gaze at the window as his head unconsciously leaned forward, as if to catch the conversation in its entirety. A mixture of dread and excitement swelled deep within him as his soon-to-be-ex-partner’s shrill voice heightened.

“You...have to be kidding me. You _want_ Felix?”

“Why did you say his name like that?” Dimitri asked. His voice dropped to an alien quality, one akin to a cold, scornful sneer. The sudden tone immediately caught everyone’s attention and all eyes fell on the girl who went white and turned away from the golden boy’s burning stare.

“No, I meant...never mind, of course, I’ll switch partners.”

“Splendid!”

Dimitri’s flashing smile returned and he nodded rather contently as he placed a warm hand on the girl’s shoulder. She perked up and returned to her usual worship, sucking in all the nearby envy from the young man’s casual touch. Felix waited, motionless, his head still turned away from the room as though he had not been paying a bit of attention.

When a shadow blanketed his form and hovered right over his nonchalant, bent form. Finally, Felix returned to face his greatest enemy in the eye. How clear was Dimitri’s form: eyes lit up with the intensity of a polished gem, his mouth curled up into an excited, aching smile, and Felix fully stared at him, watching as the young man before him grew more and more handsome and radiant by the second—a mirthless, wonderful dream personified.

Then again, everything about Dimitri seemed like a dream and everything he represented was a dream; Felix woke up a long time ago when he bore witness to his beloved friend’s metamorphosis in the first year of high school. When Felix finally woke up, he had a lingering aftertaste of a happiness lost and unreachable. Now, Dimitri just seemed like a god descending down upon him and his worshippers fell into a hissing, malevolent whisper.

Confusion. Pity. Sorrow. Different reasons why Dimitri would even try and pair up with someone like Felix. None of them were aware of the boys’ shared past and even if they did, they would pass it off as pure speculation.

“Felix,” Dimitri called out wistfully and nodded to the empty seat next to him. “May I?”

“Do whatever you want,” the young man merely grunted in reply; he stared moving things around the table in order to prepare for the dissection, ignoring how close Dimitri was sitting to him. He smelled faintly of peppermint and Felix briefly remembered the warm afternoons of the boyhood in the blistering winters.

“It’s...been a while. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Truly?”

Felix made a gurgle sound in his throat as the girls a few rows in front of him watched enviously from the corner of their eyes. Suddenly, he seemed to regret saying so little and fell into a shameless silence. It was not so hard to go back to how he used to be with Dimitri, pleasant and perfunctory marked with a boyish playfulness known among brothers.

But Dimitri’s realm was not open to him, the young man himself to perfect and clean for someone like Felix. He had a bright future ahead of him, a reputation he needed to nurture properly and tended to. They couldn’t go back to the way things used to be, could they?

“I really missed you. You’ve been avoiding me,” Dimitri said with unwonted seriousness, abandoning all small talk outright with a frown.

“You have more important things to deal with than me,” the other boy grunted as the teacher passed out the trays of their experiments to each table.

A gray frog, laid out on its back, with its blemished white eyes staring outward in two different directions and a long, purple tongue out limp on the tray. Dead. Just a small fleshy packet of organs and nerves. The tools around them glistened sharply, reflecting their expressions on their clean facade; Felix’s outright refusal to meet Dimitri’s worrying gaze. He picked up the knife and began to make the cuts silently.

“ _Felix_ , you’re important. The most important thing to me. It pains me as to why you’re distancing yourself,” Dimitri urged on, taking on a more desperate tone. He briefly broke his gaze and reached out to clasp Felix’s hand before the end of the knife could pierce the frog’s exposed stomach. His hand—the one Felix so fond of holding every time they walked home, never felt as warm until now.

_You see the look on Fraldarius’ face? Why is Dimitri even taking a chance trying be friends with someone like him?_

_I know! Maybe Dimitri doesn’t know what he’s doing...I’m worried that he’s falling into the wrong crowd, you know._

_No, exactly! Dimitri is going absolutely no where in life if someone like Felix is dragging him down._

Felix cannot speak; he was so taken over by boiling agitation, too shaken, too frightened. He remained mute, even as his grip on the knife began to shake white with fury—the classroom devolves into a brutal melody of envious, hissing whispers. Words of accusations began to fly as Dimitri drew in close, his brow furrowed with absolute worry.

“Felix? Did you hear me?”

As though in a dream, he succumbed to his voice and influence, but for just a bit. And once it passed. Felix blinked himself into life, upon the sight of his lab partner peering at him closely. Behind him, some of Dimitri’s friends watched warily and whispered among each other, mistrustful.

“I did. Pick up the organ list and mark down whether I’m doing this properly,” he said in a resigned tone of voice.

“Felix, did I do something wrong? Have I offended you in any way?” Dimitri asked rather quietly as his sad eyes eventually fell to the clipboard in front of him.

“No.”

“Then why have you changed?”

Felix pulled back the slimy flaps of the frog’s stomach, unveiling the tiny chasm of interconnected fleshy parts laying within each other—the veiny translucent heart off to the side, unbeating and sunken. Nearby, his ex partner whispered something cynical to Dimitri’s abandoned woman, and they both stared wide-eyed at Felix in silent accusation. He wondered keenly if they could see from beneath a quiet, isolated, and embittered shell, a young boy yearning to express his utter sentimentality and tender heart?

Felix chuckled to himself. What a foolish way to think.

“You should ask yourself that question, Mr. Popular,” he muttered darkly.

Dimitri blinked. Both pain and slow realization came together swimmingly upon his devastatingly handsome face and he frowned deeply. He looked at Felix with his usual clear-eye sincerity reserved only for him. Many looks and gestures were reserved just for him and him alone.

“I would _never_ leave you, Felix. Never.”

“I know.” Felix kept his eyes down. “I’m leaving you.”

A hand shot out and clasped over his wrist in a hot-white vice, stopping him from successfully scooping out the tiny, deflated heart of the frog. Felix braved himself and finally craned his head up to his lab partner and other half. Dimitri sat there completely motionless, not even seeming to breathe; his mouth was agape like that of a statue whose expression was fixed into permanent horror. His face was paler, paler than any storms of their boyhood and his one hand, still clasped around Felix’s wrist, went lifeless—not limp, but lifeless as though it were the marble hand of a statue. Finally, his lips moved but no words came out, merely the passing of air.

The entire room shifted around them; the crowd watching in awe by Felix’s silent and terrible rejection of a holy saint. He rose from his seat after physically tearing out the frog’s heart. He stared down at Dimitri, eyes glowing widely in a rare way: superior, cruel, _adult_. The young man raised his hand up and threw down the organ—a wet splat against the metal tray, sending some of the tools scattering across their table.

All eyes trained on the ruined heart and back up towards Felix—just the end of his long, dark ponytail in a blur as the young man passed Dimitri without another word. The door behind him closed with a cruel, metal clang and he went, resisting all urges to look back. To look back and greet Dimitri’s devastated and pained stare down at the frog’s torn heart.

_I always knew he was a heartless bastard._

___________________

Ever since that fateful day in the lab, Felix avoided Dimitri entirely.

He wanted no part of him; he was surrounded by too many people, too many opportunities, too many roads to his fortune, and Felix could no longer stand as a useless distraction from Dimitri’s life. But what bothered Felix the most was, despite his clear show of intentional disdain to throw the golden-haired prince away, Dimitri still trailed him closely.

In fact, the young man seemed more desperate than ever, physically having to corner Felix at different intervals with the intent to talk—Felix merely shoved his former companion aside, further ruining his own reputation among his peers who flocked to Dimitri’s side. Sooner or later, Dimitri would understand Felix’s ‘mercy’ and move on, finally separating the invisible line between their two respective realms.

In order to properly distract himself, Felix took up kendo after school—one of the few clubs that did not champion speech and social bonding over action. Surprisingly, he proved to be a good combatant and member, revealing a more calming demeanor outside of his usual attitude in school. So much so that the captain gave him a permanent spot on the team along with a personal locker for his things.

Long afternoons of stance practicing and training, an hour of solitary meditating in the sauna, followed by a small meal with the team in peace and quiet was enough for Felix to forget Dimitri in his entirety. In fact, for the first time in a long time, Felix felt...happy. Not the same happiness and joy he shared with Dimitri before their departure, but happy nonetheless. Liberation even! Unfortunately, even he could not escape Dimitri here.

He had forgotten his childhood friend’s famed stubbornness.

If Felix’s constant avoidance throughout the day was not taken seriously, then the resident prince would stop the dark-haired boy before he left for the day after his kendo practice: it usually slipped Felix’s mind that anyone else could be around this late in the day—he was the last to emerge from the club room around the late afternoon and down towards the lockers. He was always weary, mentally shot and physically limp from all the strain of practice.

By the time Felix packed everything into his duffle bag, so ready to make the walk home and collapse in his bed for a long nap, the locker door slammed shut in front of him. Felix flinched, even backing away a bit on instinct before staring wide-eyed at the strong hand that closed it; Dimitri had pressed or rather, slammed his clenched fist against the middle of the metal door, forcing it shut—his head was hung low with strands of his golden hair shielding his expression and his entire arm was white with the pulse of veins bulging slightly from the tension.

He was breathing through his nose, every inhale forcing his strong shoulders up before falling dramatically. Finally, Dimitri removed his white hand from Felix’s locker, revealing a clear and deadly imprint of his fist into the thick metal.

Dimitri looked up; he appeared normal, smiling as he usually did. But his smile was practiced, the same one he used on his peers, his teachers, and anyone who was not Felix—a mask, grinning amiably like a well-painted doll on a shelf. But Felix’s eye was well trained to Dimitri’s moods—he saw what was hiding underneath and it made him tremble.

 _Demeter_ , Felix thought, nearly saying out loud. His spellbound sunset eyes was fixed on the long figure of his childhood friend, on this twin-faced god, and he felt only one thing echoing deep in his psyche: this was the true Dimitri. Or at least, the Dimitri he had never seen before. In their boyhood, Dimitri there was all love and light and laughter. They held hands and slept together and ate together. His world shone with warmth and beckoned sweetly like a mother to her child.

In school, Dimitri was perfection. He was logic, he was order, he was an example to follow. Everything moved in complete symmetry and balance around him from the worship of his peers to the clean, the untouched aura of his reign, and the clear and vibrant future ahead of him.

But here, Dimitri was…

Felix swallowed down his fear. He saw _her_ , the tempest behind Dimitri’s namesake: Demeter, goddess of the dead, grieving earth. A third and unknown Dimitri who aligned so closely to the ancient deity: primal, animal, wrathful, hungry, despairing, wailing, cold. And dead. Oh so very and painfully dead with eyes as blemished and absent as a rotting frog on a metal tray for dissection.

And Felix backed away. He had never felt so alone until now for even Dimitri was not here. Dimitri was inaccessible, unreachable, and not in the way of his glory and light compared to Felix’s failure and dark; Dimitri had gone remote as if he were stranded alone on an island, peering outward to the endless, roaring ocean. An oppressive emptiness before the final cry of Demeter at the loss of her loved one. And the earth’s beauty went cold like a smothered candle.

Slowly, Dimitri approached Felix, fists clenched tightly at his side, and his name—Felix, the meaning of luck and happiness—beginning to form at his mouth, performing the desired movement like a puppet. Suddenly, Dimitri stopped just an inch away from Felix’s immobilized form; he looked at the young man and blinked very rapidly, as if he had been awoken from a long dream.

Perhaps it was the absolute startled look on Felix’s face that snapped Dimitri out of his trance for it was most unusual for Dimitri to be so vehement. But then he smiled—a melting smile, which Felix was so used to, and tilted his head.

“Afternoon, Felix. May I walk you home?” Dimitri asked sweetly as though he never left a huge dent in the middle of Felix’s locker.

Felix stayed silent. He peered closely at Dimitri’s face, which was as placid and intelligent as ever, kind especially with his usual blinding smile. And yet there was something Felix could not properly recognize or place; something detached in its stability, like piece of string in a violin getting close to snapping.

Felix shook his head. “No, Dimitri. I’d rather walk home alone,” he said, careful in his tone.

His refusal did not seem to make the young man angry. In fact, it seemed to give him more determination and he reached over, clasping his finger and thumb around Felix’s shaking wrist in a tight vice.

“Why not? We live in the same area! Besides we used to walk home together every day…”

“No.”

Felix nudged the other boy away, heaved his duffle bag over his sweaty shoulder, and stalked off without another word. After he left out the front door of the school—everything glowing in the orange hue of a dying sunset—and walked across the empty intersection, down his usual route home through the desolate acres of overgrown parking lots, Felix heard an irritable voice call out behind him.

The young man muttered darkly and began to take off, though his legs were like jelly, still strained from hours of stances. Someone ran after him and a strong hand clasped over his shoulder from behind.

Felix sighed. “What do you want, Dimitri?” He asked slowly.

“Can...we...please...talk?” The other boy huffed out, exhausted from having to dash madly from the school.

“Make it quick.”

“T-Thank...you…”

Felix slapped his hand away without looking at him and went on without another word. Dimitri kept pace with him—Felix quickened his steps with thoughts of escaping, and his cheeks practically burned from Dimitri’s intense side glance.

“I want to know what I did wrong,” he asked in his polite yet desperate manner. “I don’t know what exactly I done but Felix, I want you to know how truly sorry I am—”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Felix stated through his gritted teeth; he could not look at him right now.

“Then...why have you been giving me the cold shoulder?”

“Because. Dimitri, everyone in the school fucking adores you. You’re in like every school cabinet club, the honor society, and I've seen you play baseball. If a recruiter for a minor league won’t take you away, then universities are bound to throw scholarships at you. Face it: you don’t need someone like me to drag you down.”

“Are you kidding me?” Dimitri asked, his voice rising in tone and urgency. “Felix, we can still be friends. None of that even matters! You’re the most important thing to me!”

“You cannot risk your reputation. The last thing I want is for you to become a social outcast like me.”

“Felix, you’re not a social outcast—everyone else is just foolish. And even if that is the case, I would follow you no matter what others say or believe. I don’t even care about any of them.”

“Dimitri, my place isn’t yours,” Felix muttered and shook his head dismissively. “Let me ask you this: what do you plan to do after graduation, hm? Stay in this sad, dying little town and become a nobody like me?”

Dimitri was silent for a while. Finally, without looking at Felix and more so to the glowing, bleeding horizon that cast long, black shadows on anything that stood in its low light, he spoke very softly.

“I got early acceptance into the University of Fhirdiad…”

“I knew it. See? You don’t need distractions, Dimitri. You need to focus on your life and future from now on and leave me in the past.”

“You can’t make that decision for me,” the other boy hissed; his hand suddenly shot out and grabbed Felix’s limp wrist, spinning the dark-haired boy around to face him. Felix, in that moment, awoke, paralyzed by a keen sense of danger. Dimitri was leering an inch away from his face, arctic blue eyes burning black holes in the side of his face, as the heat of body overwhelmed the other in a tight hold. His blood thinned and Felix could not breathe, merely staring back at the consuming tundra that roared in his face—the wrath of a weeping earth goddess.

“You’re _mine_ , I’m _yours_. You cannot just decide one day to leave me under the premise that it’s for my own good. Let me decide my life—and I want you in it forever,” Dimitri uttered slowly, each word leaving his tongue in an elongated syllable.

Felix listened to Dimitri more attentively than he had ever before and he kept his gaze centered and leveled in the burning pupils of the shadowy beast in front of him before averting them; the sun had set and all the shadows slipped in between them, a hollow darkness dim and aching. In the veil, Felix noticed Dimitri’s gaze once again; animal-like, hungry, and dark with lust and mourning.

_Demeter, Demeter, oh Demeter._

“Let me walk you home. We can talk more about this inside,” Dimitri begged and held Felix’s hand, latching their fingers together and allowing the familiar feeling of childhood warmth to flood between their digits.

Felix sucked his teeth; he slapped Dimitri’s hand away, the warmth following after him in cruel, cruel rejection, and the young man turned away coldly.

“No, Dimitri. Leave me alone and just move on,” he said curtly.

“Felix, please…”

But Felix did not hear him. Or rather, he chose not to hear him.

There was no joy, no absolution, or relief in letting Dimitri go. Perhaps he was wrong for making the choice for Dimitri; perhaps they could have kept their friendship in the midst of the changing tides of reputations and futures. But sooner or later, Felix understood that Dimitri would be soon unreachable and the slow death of their relationship would be too much for him to even bear. A quicker death now—the single yank of an old band aid, was the only solution out.

Or, at least that was what Felix kept telling himself as he made that long and suffocating walk back in the dark. Dimitri watched him the entire way, his gaze overwhelmingly and unwaveringly tight, stretching thinner and thinner with the threat of snapping at any second. The hand on that rubber band was Felix himself, but he had very little way of realizing, merely heading in the opposite direction without noticing the creaking of the string behind him.

Thinner and thinner and _thinner_.

___________________

There was a certain fascination most people had with Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd—the one who came from Demeter. In fact, the young man _exerted_ this need for equal fascination from everyone around him, even those who desperately try to stray from his light.

It first began with the rumors during their first year of high school; how Dimitri had defended a peer from a group of seniors, aiming to dump the cornered freshman in the lunchroom garbage. He humiliated the burly leader by grasping the boy’s thick neck and lifting him, squeezing just hard enough for him to gasp out like a land ridden fish; afterwards, he left him fall to the cement, choking harshly as he was pulled away by his buddies in a frantic escape. At least, that’s what those present claimed.

Felix dismissed it as pure, overly exaggerated accounts by Dimitri’s friends. Not once in his own boyhood had he ever witnessed any example of such...animalistic brutality by the other boy before. Dimitri was soft. He was kind. He was naive. The thought of him exerting any violence and torture on another person was simply out of the question: the students of their school liked to speak foolishly, that was all. But that did little to deter the rise in Dimitri’s own status with their peers.

He rose, higher and higher, until his figure disappeared behind the clouds and Felix was left to watch from the dark shadows of the abandoned, dying earth. But now, he was not so sure if Dimitri had truly left at all or even cared: his attempts to sever the red line between them had taken an unexpected turn.

Felix could not escape him, even when Dimitri actually stepped back and gave him space for days on end. His eyes haunted the young man’s dreams, and what he failed to communicate to Felix in real life, his presence came forth and took possession when Felix was asleep, rendering him a complete slave to his will. The same, terrible nightmare in which Felix always awoke from in a cold sweat; Dimitri or Demeter— _was there a difference between the two?_ emerged from the shadows of the dying earth. All around Felix was barren land—dead grass, dead leaves, and nothing but the chill of a killing winter.

Nothing survives in winter except wolves.

Dimitri, blue-eyed, golden crowned, and cruelfully beautiful Dimitri stepped forward as a roaring tempest surrounded them, locking any chance of escape. Felix tried to push himself up, tried to get up and run, but his legs refused to move. He stood immobilized as a god incarnate stood a mere inch away from him, handsome face frosted over in a cold and beautifully murderous fury; his hand reached over to clasped over the soft, tender spot below Felix’s chin, keeping him still as his fingers dug deep into the poor boy’s pale skin. Felix did not move; he stared straight into the blinding arctic, shivering white without any breath escaping from his lips. He could not recognize the boy he had loved for eighteen years; there was no kindness upon his cruel, superior expression, no warmth in his glaring eyes, or any laughter in his voice.

This was a stranger, a killer wearing Dimitri’s face.

A half-crescent moon of a smile slit across his face and Dimitri leaned forward, half-chuckling lips hovering just over Felix’s. Everything flashed white and red, and Felix felt the darkness seep in and steal away his will—Dimitri’s voice, the last thing he usually heard before the sweet sensation of sleep took over, sung to him in the praise of an all-powerful goddess and those lips lunged forward to trap him in a hungry, killing embrace.

**Felix. You’re mine. Forever.**

When Felix woke up to the cool emptiness of his bedroom and the quiet hum of his radiator, the young man hugged his knees to his chest and waited for the sun to rise. Nightmares likes that always kept him awake and fearing for sleep. Fearing for the night. Fearing for Dimitri.

Something was wrong, something was broken, and he did not know how to fix it. He was child looking at a toy he smashed on the ground—a toy he purposely threw down in his childish rage. Now what else could he do but move on and forget.

But Dimitri did not forget; he never forgot. In fact, the man was like a hunter—tracking down and confronting Felix at every given opportunity: he asked to sit with the sullen, dark-haired despite Dimitri’s entire group staring wide-eyed at their prince from their table; he asked to study whenever he spotted Felix reading alone in the library; he especially asked every afternoon after their respective practices—kendo and baseball—to walk home with him.

And every time, Felix said no in absolute and brutal rejection. This song and dance that was beginning to take form between them both irritated and frightened Felix terribly—that Dimitri was so stubborn and persistent to continue seeking his companionship and that Dimitri, somehow, knew his every move. Knew his every location. Knew his schedule and knew what he was doing at that exact moment. It was as though the young man could sense Felix’s whereabouts at any moment and immediately ran to him. Knowing this alone, Felix found himself terrorized.

In order for him to properly forget about Dimitri and all thoughts of the former friend, the dark haired boy began to dedicate himself fully to the kendo club after school. His captain and club mates were all respectable people, quiet in their natures and equally dedicated in their skills. Somehow, just being around them—training with them, eating with them, and even having small and intellectual chats without any judgment. The people here, they too were weary of the common and cruel talk of their peers. At least here, in the club, they were able to be themselves. Even Felix did not feel so pushed into the shadows as he took stance and extended both his arms forward in a group stretch.

Kendo was also one of the few places Dimitri could not breach: he was not allowed here despite his universally loved status, and the only time he could catch even a glimpse of Felix was after his own practice on the baseball field—which was five minutes later than kendo. Once he staggered into the locker room, he’d lock eyes with Felix who was already on his way out; the dark haired boy immediately replied no, giving Dimitri no chance to sport his usual question, and even shoulder checked him as he left the locker room.

Felix was cruel. Felix was unhappy. Felix was unlucky.

And Dimitri was grieving.

But this was the only way to permanently push him away for good.

Felix did not want to think of it anymore and the days went on without much fanfare. This particular cool afternoon—a dark, rainy afternoon in which the skies were black and crying all day, Felix retired a bit early from his usual sparring session and came upon the sight of a girl standing idle at his locker.

Idle was the wrong word. Idle would imply loitering—without purpose. Simply meant to stray and wander. No, this girl was standing right by Felix’s locker, the one dented with Dimitri’s fist imprint in the middle, with purpose. She was waiting for him.

Felix merely stared at the girl, his mouth dropped a bit, before he swallowed down his fear and slowly staggered over—his body still aching from today’s rather brutal practice. As he sauntered forward, the girl lifted her head, revealing a rather pretty and demure expression. Golden hair that fell in a neat pool around her pink shoulder and eyes dazzling blue— _who did she remind him of_? She blinked rapidly, as if trying to see if Felix was, in fact, real. The girl even reached out and gently poked his chest; when her finger made contact with a hard, solid body, she backed right into the locker with her face slightly pink.

No one moved. Both so equally taken aback by the other person’s presence in a space only meant to occupy the momentarily. Finally, Felix spoke in his voice he did not recognize.

“Can I...help you?”

“Yes! Well, no. Well, I mean…” The girl trailed off nervously, eyes tracing all along the floor and walls without meeting Felix’s long and strangely patient gaze. Her cheeks burned slightly—flushed together with the coming of a fever, and finally, she looked up, eyes shining wildly like shooting stars. “I was hoping to talk to you in p-private, Felix.”

“Well, you have five minutes before the baseball team jumps in for their usual shower,” Felix replied, eyes trained over towards the digital clock on the wall before riveting back to his somewhat frantic guest. The girl’s small hands fidgeted together but she kept his shaky gaze onto the kendo practitioner.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No! No...I just wanted to tell you something and this was the only time I could get you alone…”

“Oh, well, go ahead. I’m listening,” Felix urged on, strangely patient with his words and demeanor.

Most people he interacted with outside of kendo usually treated the dark haired boy with a small intermixing of disdain and fear, especially the girls who did not seem to take to his blunt nature too well. Perhaps the greatest oddity of this girl was that her mannerism; she did not seem to come out of a place of spite—her eyes were hardly grazed over in annoyance nor did it seem like her words were meant to stung in anyway. She smiled shyly and continued on, a bit more braver.

“We’re actually in English together—I sit closest to the door. And in Gym. Not that it mattered, I just wanted to let you know that we have two classes together,” the girl said in her simple innocence.

Felix nodded in small recognition. “Yup, I remember.”

“This might sound weird. Like super, super weird. And I hope I don’t come off as a complete stalker but...I kinda, always watched you. Especially in Gym—I think you’re…really cool. And handsome. Sorry, that came out weird.” The girl’s face was red as a tomato, burning of a thousand suns swirling over and over, ready to burst. She clapped both sides of her cheeks in order to compose herself and ended up squeaking a bit.

“No, that’s weird,” Felix stated.

“Yeah, I know…”

“You do know who I am, right? I’m not...a friendly person. Not a lot of people tend to approach me.”

The girl tilted her head, blonde locks falling down her slender, pale shoulders. “Oh, I am aware. My friends all warned me about you,” she said without malice.

“Oh. Well, there you go. Now since you have all the details, you can spare yourself---”

“I don’t care about that.”

Felix could not help but laugh; he had committed himself to amiability with this particular demure creature and he was rather determined to see her dedication—or rather, reveal to her the truth of his character. He crossed his arms, grimacing a bit, and leaned forward, watching as she blushed even harsher upon his close proximity.

“Really? Why so?”

“Because you’re not a bad person. Just because you’re rude doesn’t mean anything. I think...you’re honest despite what others think of you and it shows through your actions. And I passed by the kendo club several times before and, well…I like the way you fight.”

“Huh,” Felix arched his brow and he stepped back, “the way I fight? So...you saw me spar?”

“Yeah! You look really cool and strong!” The girl blinked rapidly as if trying to make sense of her own impulsive words. And then she continued on, even coming forward to showcase her own admiration. “You may not talk a lot or really get along with everyone, but I can tell that you don’t have to hide your true self to be happy. I’d rather be true to myself despite everyone’s opinions than a constant mask of smiles.”

 _A constant mask of smiles_. Felix could not help but a grin a bit at this; he covered his mouth in order to shield his expression and turned away, his own cheeks burning. He was not certain if this was infatuation. Perhaps not in the same way the girl felt, but he didn’t seem so apprehensive by her presence anymore. The dark-haired boy hummed a bit and nodded to the girl, gesturing her to continue on.

“Well, that’s all I had to say. Actually, no, there is something else,” the girl said and she went back to fumbling with her fingers—a personal defense mechanism, it appeared. Her blue eyes, pale and smooth like the surface of a winter moon, lit up into Felix’s burning irises and there, it clicked: adoration.

“I really like you, Felix. I wanted to see if you would be willing to go out with me.”

“I…” It was Felix’s turn to go mute from shock, to be taken over with unknown emotion and by the disbelief of the other person’s presence.

Unconsciously, he grew flustered and felt his own fingers drum along the side of his thighs—his anxiety spilling over like a violent geyser, spreading out from his hands to his toes. Would it be so shameful for him to admit that this was his first love confession and that he did not know how to proceed from here? Would it be so bad that the only person he ever loved in his life outside of his family was Dimitri—a confession he never will ever reveal to? It was all so new to him that when he opened his mouth, his tongue shriveled up dry and crusted.

“C-Can I give you an answer tomorrow?” the dark haired man finally admitted, swallowing down harshly as his hands clenched into nervous white balls at his side.

“Oh! Of course! Yes, yes,” the girl said excited with a nod—golden hair flying a bit from the bobble of her pretty little head. “Can I wait for you at your locker tomorrow? Same time?”

“I think that’s a good idea.”

“Well...it’s a plan then! Uh, thank you so much for listening to my mad rambling. I await your reply.” She gave Felix a blinding smile, full of overwhelming admiration and worship. The petite girl patted down the dust from her uniform, nodded to Felix with her usual shyness coming through, and slipped past him without another word. The dark-haired boy did not turn around, still too stun from everything that just happened to watch his confessor leave. Her petite steps echoed across the locker room before her usual startled voice sounded in a polite apology.

“Oh Dimitri! Excuse me, I was just leaving…”

The door shut with a metal clash and Felix reluctantly spun around, meeting the cold, dark figure of his usual enemy; Dimitri stood static in the half shadows of the locker room, staring straight ahead at Felix without a hint of emotion. Not even his usual foolish hopefulness and serenity; Dimitri’s face was a void—nothingness and dark, sucking in all emotion until there was nothing left. The only sounds in the empty space of the locker room was the distant footsteps of other club members going about outside and down the hall—there was the faint ring of laughter and someone dropped a pencil. And it kept rolling and rolling and rolling.

“How long were you standing there?” Felix asked hoarsely. Far off, in the untouched, lonely spaces of his mind where even Dimitri could not penetrate, a terrified echo came: _Dimitri isn’t here—Demeter is furious_

“Will you accept her confession?” Dimitri asked, indirectly answering Felix’s question with a question of his own; his voice came out hollow and echoed through the locker room like a mechanical whirl of a machine. Dimitri’s eyes glowed ominously in the shadows, leering at him so closely that Felix could hardly breathe. Neither boys moved from their respective spots—Dimitri half-blocking the exit of the room and Felix still sweaty and bruised at his dented locker.

“Not sure. I mean, she is nice,” he remarked causally; he turned his back to the boy and quickly snatched his things, trying to ignore the keen burn scorching right into his exposed skin. “I never had someone approach me like that before. I’m sure you’re used to it, though.”

“She wants to hear your reply tomorrow. What will you say to her?”

“Maybe I’ll give it a try. I mean, it’s just a date, right? Who knows, I might actually fall in love with her,” Felix said with a shake of his head and a half-laugh.

When he shut the door to his locker, something hard grasped his shoulder and spun him around, effectively throwing his weary body against the metal. Felix momentarily saw stars glittering against the white flash of his vision and his head rang like a church bell.

The boy groaned out, watching as colors reformulated around him from the blur of an underwater descent to the gradual breach of the surface: his vision returned, the bell silenced, and all that was in front of him was the harsh roar of a terribly blue arctic—the arrival of winter upon the once-green earth.

Dimitri had shoved him against the lockers, no doubt denting those as well with his monstrous strength; the golden boy, the valedictorian, the honor society president, leered at him from a mere inch away—eyes of a beast. Eyes of a vengeful earth goddess. And the voice that came out was not his. Not one that belonged to the boy he had grown up with for the last eighteen years.

“Felix, do you hate me that much?”

“Let me go, Dimitri,” Felix commanded very gently as he tugged at Dimitri’s strong arms planted on both sides of his shoulders, gripping painfully tight. “I need to get home—let me go.”

“I missed you so much,” he muttered madly, fingers digging into Felix’s soft skin. “Tell me what I need to do to get you back.”

“Nothing—let me go, Dimitri. Now!”

Felix mustered his remaining strength and shoved Dimitri away. The golden-haired prince stepped back but kept his incredibly hardened and consuming stare, even more so when Felix heaved his bags over his shoulder and glared back at him in kind. Not once in the eighteen years had Dimitri displayed any such aggression, speech or otherwise.

It was not him. This was not him. This was someone else—a malevolent spirit who possessed his former friend. A mad terror. Insanity.

“I’m heading home. Do me a favor and cool off, will you?” Felix gave one final snap before shoving past the immobilized boy.

“Felix.”

“What?”

He turned around, only to meet with a smiling face, completely devoid of any earlier madness. Dimitri displayed his usual placid grin, eyes drawn back as he gestured politely to Felix’s tense form. It was a performance of a stringed puppet, dancing mindlessly to the will of its master. Nothing was real and the darkness still remained behind feigned stability.

“May I walk you home?”

A warning; the rubber band was close to snapping. But Felix could not see it.

“No.”

Without another word, Felix went out the locker room, allowing the door to shut very slowly from behind him; Dimitri watched in the cold, sterile loneliness, his smile wavering ever so slightly as the sight of the other boy’s retreating back faded from behind the sanctity of the door shutting in its ominous permanence.

 _Snap_.

___________________

No wound. No scratches or bruises on his skin anywhere. And the only blood came from the open crack, spilling out into the wet soil and into the water. And the sheen of the metal bat, badly dented from the overexertion. There were droplets splattered across his cheek and when he reached over to wipe them clean with the back of his gloved hand, it slicked wetly across his face.

The northern wind howled and bristled over him, over the wet splotches in his clothes, over the pulsating bit of pink flesh from the crack. He laughed to himself, too mad to even recognize the low moon hovering over him—it was late, too late for anyone to be out at this time of night. The houses nearby had turned off their lights one by one until it was just the shivering reflection of the night sky in the river.

He looked to the crack, eyes drawn together disdainfully, and without a single sound, he used the tip of his boot to push the _thing_ down into the water. It bobbled in the dark currents before being pulled under suddenly from a hidden underwater current, disappearing past the black surface with the last thing seen being the light shimmer of blonde hair in the pale moonlight. He watched the river swallow up his bloody sacrifice before picking up his destroyed bat and making his way back towards the realm of man.

There was one house, one that stood out among the collection of stones in the grand necklace of this neighborhood. It was not a particularly impressive house nor was it really special from its neighbors. It had a roof, a front door, a lawn, and windows. A typical house. But one that was so sincerely special to him that the sight of it, sleeping in the darkness, made his heart pulse with love.

He could not help but smile as he crossed the empty street—the street lights had long shattered and cast the neighborhood in a terrible, oppressive darkness—and towards the house. Everyone was asleep as the windows were dark and the only sounds echoing from the walls was the distant static of someone’s television left on. He made his way over the fence and towards the back of the house where a single large window faced the moon—silky curtains so thin that the gentle lights merely shone through and illuminated the pale sleeping beauty inside.

A beauty of midnight-black hair spilling out onto the pillow and to the floor like a knocked over bottle of ink and porcelain skin. The rise and fall of an exposed chest to the moonlight and a face of wondrous childhood.

He peered into that room, at the sight of his great love sleeping soundly—a thing of beauty. He could not help but smile as his heart practically swelled dangerously with ambrosia. Finally, he lifted a bloody knuckle to the ice-thin window, rapped it gently, and called out:

_Felix ~_

___________________

Felix woke up in a cold sweat, choking on his own silent scream.

What a nightmare. What a nightmare. And yet, the boy went still and white at the sight of a splotch of red marked so distinctively at his window. Just a drop.

___________________

Felix knows his fate. It is not such a fate that few spectacular individuals will have—like Dimitri. His is ordinary, born to die simple and human. Perhaps he won’t be stuck in this terrible small town of theirs. But then again, if he were to move, he would just die elsewhere. No name, no status, just a young man slipping back into the darkness like thousands of others. But he could still dream. Perhaps not as big as others but dream nonetheless.

When he was a boy, he dreamed of love. He dreamed of a big house somewhere nice and sunny, with a blue front door and bay windows. He dreamed of Dimitri (before his ascension) at his side—sleeping in the same sheets, in the same bed, tangled up in each other’s limbs. He was not sure what neighbors they would have. Perhaps the ones he could look over the fence and say a quick hello to while they tended to their gardens. Maybe a nice elderly couple they could bring food to once in a while—a reminder of their own growing of age together.

It is a simple dream. Domesticated. Ordinary. But it was his for the longest time. Then Dimitri grew wings and got so bright that Felix had to scratch out his first love’s face in that daydream like a scorn lover. But who else could fit such a wonderful fantasy like him?

Ever since his nightmares, Felix had been too occupied with his club activities after school and soon, new dreams emerged. Not exactly glorious but he could see himself doing something like this in the future—instruction. Training. Perhaps even something higher in the regional leagues. But nonetheless, he seldom strayed away from the coolness of his usual shade. Being in the light too long suffocated him terribly. Then the image of the girl at the locker flashed through his mind and Felix felt his chest tighten: perhaps there was a way for him to find happiness in the wake of his forced eviction of Dimitri.

Perhaps he could still find that blue front door after all. Felix means happiness; maybe his father wasn’t so wrong in his choices after all.

But, strangely enough, Felix came upon a strange sight. Trailing after the bustling crowd into the English classroom, the young man, still groggy from a long morning, stared wide-eyed down at the empty desk near the door. Everyone took their respective seats and that desk was still empty.

She was not here today.

 _She’s probably sick today_ , the girls in front of him whispered. And yet Felix could not shake this thick dread stewing like bile at the pit of his stomach. And it churned and boiled over hotly when he heard a secondary voice somewhere next to him, a frantic, worried tone.

_Funny...I texted her last night but she wouldn’t respond. I wonder if she’s okay._

Felix closed his eyes. A nightmare was a nightmare. No one ever spoke on nightmares having visionary elements—only dreams. He was trying to convince himself in the empty spaces of his mind, his own voice getting weaker and weaker as the classroom died to a hush when the teacher began with a single lesson:

_Do we still remember the mad hatter? From here, we see usage of the title ‘mad’ to imply a mania. In fact, dear students, ‘mad’ is nothing more than a complete and utter dominance of emotions. Wrath. Envy. Love. And in the human form, that we see as insanity._

___________________

She was not at the lockers.

Perhaps Felix should have expected it. He was so over his head that there could be anyone outside of Dimitri who would have any attraction to his unsightly nature. In the end, whether she was sick or not, Felix staring back at the empty space in front of his dented locker made his silent heart weep.

What answer could he have given her if she was here? Yes? No? Did he even like her or was he just impressed that he managed to have someone at all approach him? Either way, rejection stung deep like poison and the weary young man gave a long sigh; it had been a long day.

Even his kendo captain noticed how distracted he was during practice and ushered him to head home early and relax. There was nothing he could do but stagger out of the club room with his back covered in sweat and purple welts, and the knowledge that the girl was not here.

Felix tried to push down the vomit congealing at the base of his throat as he fiddled with the lock on his door. He felt foolish at that moment, that or relief; he was truly hoping to have met with her, even if he did not have a concrete answer. Felix was always more of an on-site type of person anyway. And as he spun around to the different numbers in his combination, his mind slowly edged towards the image of Dimitri.

Dimitri standing at the door. The look of a bitterly cold void imprinted on his face, sucking up everything good and bad into that emotionless black hole, and spilling everything out in flashes of white fury. He was enraged. He was grieving. And the flourishing pain clear on his face somehow struck Felix deeply for he knew why.

Dimitri was taking this forced separation harder than he imagined and at the end of the day, it was Felix’s fault for even leaving. It was his fault for separating the two realms in the first place when Dimitri was so keen in keeping them together. But Felix couldn’t go back now—that door was already closed to him.

Felix sighed out as he pulled the lock open with a clean snap and opened the door. Something fluttered white in his face and fell to the floor between his feet with the lightness of a fallen butterfly. The young man blinked rapidly and peered down: a sealed letter.

Someone must have slipped it into his locker while he was at practice. Suddenly his heart pumped wildly and thoughts of the girl flashed through his mind: did she leave him a letter? He wasted no time as he bent down and snatched the letter off the ground—it was strangely heavy with the weight of something more than just a single sheet of paper. Had she written to him more? Left a thesis as to why she decided to retract her confession?

The only thing that gave Felix a bizarre sense of hope was the single heart sticker placed right at the base of the flap and nothing more. No name. Nothing. Just a glittery heart stationary that he expected some of the more creative girls used to express their love in these letters. After a minute of staring at the heart, the little gate between him and the secrets held within, Felix carefully pulled open the flap without tearing the paper.

The first thing he saw was the folded up letter, the imprints of words shadowing through the back of the page. Second, he noticed a small parcel, obscured by the thin gift tissue that wrapped around in an elegant fashion. It was slightly thick with the presence of multiple sheets inside Felix could not help but frown—he was not expecting a gift. Either way, the young man did the smart thing and pulled out the letter first. He opened it with one hand and his sunset eyes traced on the typed words of a confession:

_My beloved Felix,_

_I know not how to start this letter for it is above me in even putting my bottomless feelings for you in simple, inadequate words. But I will try in the best way I can and prove to you my devotion._

_Love is a terrible, cruel feeling. Would it be foolish of me to say how much I hate it? That I despise it to my very core, and that the simple thought of it renders me absolute comatose? Love holds me captive at night; it forces me still at the sight of your beauty whenever you grace my sight. It steals away my composure and transforms me towards a beast befitting of its madness. I don’t understand what happens to me and I cannot control it._

_And you who have denied and turned away from me so coldly, this madness is growing and growing and I fear I can no longer control myself. You are my drug and desire you so ardently. I want you. I need you. We are pieces of each other that desperately need to be fitted again, never to separate until the end of our days._

_I know you desire to stray off, to drift away from the shores we have built together and move off towards the unknown horizon. And all I can do is watch your boat disappear without any hope of reaching you—I’m afraid you might be getting too far off for even me to reach. Oh, Felix my Felix, I cannot allow that._

_How can I live without you? We need each other to breathe, to eat, to sleep, to love. And it shames me how much I need to remind you of this. Take this as you would: this is a sign of my undying devotion to our love. I hope this, enough, is a reminder for you to understand and return to me._

_Eternally yours; a love everlasting._

The parcel fell from his loosening grip; the tissue paper ripped from the pressure and multiple things spilled out onto the floor in a flurry of colors. Felix’s shaky eyes reluctantly left the letter and traced along the ground beneath him; photos. Many, many photos, covering all along the sterile white tiles of the locker room floor. Felix’s vision was too watery from where he stood to truly see what their facades were so he bent down and took a closer look.

Demeter’s earth consumes the body of her spring child, returning her twisted form to the soil with the worm and maggots. Skin. Flesh. Blood. Bones. And wondrous golden hair, shining in the moonlight. Blood seeping into the fanned locks, half buried in Demeter’s cruel earth.

Someone screamed his name in terror, but all he saw was that half-crescent moon smile leering back at him. Felix’s fragile world turned on its side and faded black.

___________________

“Felix, can you hear me?”

A warm hand—a hand from childhood and endless amounts of sleepovers, gently clasped over his in a tight hold.

Dimitri’s face is like a far away star, spiraling in the black ocean until it slowly went out with just the shimmers of a dead planet; a white facade, half obscured by the eternal darkness of space. Even the blue of his eyes merely seemed like two pinholes in which escaped from, shining from the vast space of suns and stars.

Felix weakly reached out and pressed his shivering fingers against the void; the universe hummed pleasantly and leaned into the touch as though it were finally responding to humanity’s endless fascination with it.

“Where are we?”

 _We_. Felix said subconsciously and it made Dimitri shine like a thousand stars, ready to explode.

“Infirmary. I found you passed out in the locker room.”

“Did you see…,” Felix sucked in his teeth and closed his eyes; Dimitri’s thumb was tracing down his wrist in small circles, over the small pulse of his vein, “the _thing_...on the floor.”

“What thing? Felix, you threw up and the janitor had to throw everything in the garbage,” Dimitri murmured. He sat so close to the bedside, eyes going over each individual goosebumps imprinted in Felix’s pale skin.

“Serious?”

“Yeah. What did you see exactly? I never seen such a horrified reaction from you before.”

“Nothing.” The dark haired boy let out a shuddering sigh; his stomach churned once again. “ _Nothing_.”

Dimitri nodded sympathetically. “The nurse will be here soon. I’ll leave you be now---”

“No!” Felix grunted frantically and grabbed Dimitri’s retreating hand. When he realized what he just done, he quickly let go and sunk back into the bed. “No...please stay. Just for a little bit. I don’t want to be alone.”

The child in Felix emerged, one he buried so deeply beneath layers of denial and self-loathing. So often in their youth did he begged Dimitri to sleep with him, wrapped under the same sheets together in a shared warmth. The child begged for his first love to sleep with him again, in the sanctuary of their glow-in-the-dark covered room.

Dimitri complied though there was a strange reluctance to his movements; he sat on the edge of Felix’s bed, the new weight pulling the boy closer. His hand reached over and brushed along the side of Felix’s cool, sweaty—the touch of a merciful God, of a more attentive universe. In that moment, Felix had long forgotten his strife with Dimitri and they regressed so terribly into young children.

“What happened, Felix? Did you eat something bad?” Dimitri asked quietly.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Was there...any news lately? Something urgent?”

“Only one.” The golden prince sat back and rubbed back of his neck, peering off. “Uh, your friend from yesterday. We were just told that her mother filed a missing person report.”

“I figured as much,” Felix muttered softly and closed his eyes; flesh, blood, and bone rotting into the soggy, wet earth. And a letter of mad, mad love.

“Maybe she’ll be found…,” Dimitri reassured softly; he clenched Felix’s hand, allowing the warmth of their skin to flood between their fingers. “Maybe she’s sleeping over a friend’s house without telling anyone.”

“Hm.”

“Felix, you look sick. Do you want me to fetch a bucket?”

“No. Stay.”

“Okay…”

Felix braved himself and took a long, smoldering look at Dimitri’s face once more; the blonde prince was gravity—a void that demanded attention and life to his center. Even as children, all eyes were on him: parents, neighbors, teachers, peers, friends—they were all drawn to his light and were sucked in without even realizing it; Felix watched from the shadows. And Dimitri turned around and stared back at him. Only Felix. No one else but Felix. Even with all the people surrounding him, there had been no one else but Felix. The boys were both unified in their tunnel vision and tragically, it worsened with misinterpretation and age.

“Why are you still here?” Felix finally asked, unable to find strength in his voice.

“Because...you asked,” Dimitri replied hesitantly, shifting back upon impulse.

“No, I mean...after everything I said. You’re still around. You’ve always been around. Why?”

They fell into an amiable silence without the usual grief in their conversations. Dimitri was sitting very still, waiting patiently as if Felix’s words were the most important things in the world. And Felix, so feverishly terrified and excited by his worshiper, yearning for a love long denied allowed himself the time to actually listen for once.

“Because I love you,” Dimitri said tonelessly and plain; an obvious truth as though Felix asked what color the sky was—nothing. The sky had no color; it reflects off the world.

“Well, I don’t.” Felix forced his usual cruel lie.

For that moment, Dimitri almost seemed to fall back into his expected routine: a plead for Felix to take him back—to look at him. To admit to his love. Instead, he smiled, distant and unreadable as though he were staring off at a pretty picture and said in a disturbingly quiet voice:

“I know, Felix. Do you need someone to walk you home?”

 _Need_ . Not _May I_ . _Need Someone_. Cool, absent, and professional—two strangers having a simple chat with one offering aid on a descending night. And nothing more. Felix’s dull heart actually stung and he felt like crying. Is this what being truly alone feels like?

“No. Just stay.”

“Okay.”

And he held onto Dimitri until all images of blood brains and twisted limbs melting into the wet earth slowly faded with his weeping soul. Only the words of that letter remained, echoing like a broken record until the madness set in.

_Eternally yours; a love everlasting._

___________________

Felix would have sworn in retrospect that there was a certain shift in the air that day when it was announced that the county police had launched a search party. Naturally, it put everyone in a deeply shared tension, looking over their shoulders and whispering theories to one another in terrified hisses. Panic was a contagious disease that passed through the school in a quick, unforgiving spread and the only ones untouched by the plague were Felix and Dimitri respectively.

Dimitri was strangely quiet throughout the frightened chatter. In fact, the usually gallant and beloved prince had gone into a muted recluse; he rarely spoke, rarely listened, and merely spent his time staring off into space. The only person who managed to break this spell was Felix, in which Dimitri’s absent attention went dark with something unreadable. Something hungry.

Even in moments where Felix was just minding his own business, he could feel Dimitri’s stare burning black holes deep into his backside, leering from a place so far off and unreachable. He could not even escape his former friend’s growing mania even in Kendo where he swore he caught the young man catching a glimpse at him on his way to the baseball field.

And as for Felix, he had his own problems to deal with: the letters kept coming.

At first, the notes were ‘modest’ in their nature. Just simple observations from a madman.

_You put your hair down today. I always love seeing how long and dark it is. You’re so beautiful…_

_The welts from Kendo still mark your beautiful skin terribly. Oh, how I wish to hold and soothe you…_

_Have you ever noticed that your eyes are the same colors as a sunset? Burning brightly, dying exquisitely…_

Felix paid them little mind—he had too lest he will go insane from the realization that his admirer was a killer and one with detachment to reality. He always received these letters after kendo practice in which he contemplated on who could possibly stay behind to slip them in. Sometimes, he retired early or outright skipped club in order to catch his stalker in the very act: unfortunately, no one came around and the letters continued to assault his eyes every day.

Eventually, the search party went from the land to the water. And everyone knew that she was dead. Any search that progressed to a body of water was a bad sign. The mood of the entire school grew oppressive and dark, and not even the usual jeer and gossip could lift everyone’s spirits. Everyone fell into a hive mind sort of hush at the mention of her name or the continuing efforts of the police with just the distance creak of the ceiling fan going off.

And Felix continued to try and find sanctuary in his hobbies as the letters had begun to take on a form of their own. Something more sinister and hungry. And desperate.

He first noticed it around the time he made vice captain of the club; his captain had given him a sort of amiable pat on his head, smiling a bit as it was abnormal for the stoic leader to show any emotion. Felix liked his club captain: the man was reliable, strong, and wise with his criticism. He was also one of the few people in the school Felix did not mind hanging around with or chatting, even if the conversation was trivial and rather childish.

While the both of them were in the same class year, Felix couldn’t help but feel like his captain truly was a senior by the definition: older with a keen sense of world-weariness that followed the more experienced individuals around.

As such, it came as a great surprise to Felix when his captain promoted him to be his vice—a warm intimacy of respect and admiration without much words. Merely the passing of titles and a soft pat on the head.

“Sincerely, I am proud of you,” was all his captain had offered in his usual, terse fashion and ruffled the top of Felix’s head with a brotherly affection. He even smiled a bit, which was rare for the man.

Felix never felt his face burn as much until now and he wondered if this was the relief he had been seeking. How momentarily it was; how foolish for him to think such a thing.

A letter came almost immediately.

_You smiled at him today. It was so sweet and tender. Do you love him? Do you want to be with him? Put that dream to rest once I go and meet your lover._

_He makes my blood boil; I go blind with rage. I want to tear that bastard from limb to limb until he’s nothing but a loose collection of arms and legs. I want to devour him down to bone. I want to cut his head off and present it to you as a sign of my love._

**_Why can’t you see me?_ **

In Felix’s sheer and overwhelming fit of panic, he made a mad dash back to the kendo club room only to find it empty: his captain had gone home for the day and Felix wanted to die a thousand times over for the fate he had condemned the young man too. Bile stirred at the pit of stomach—just like the afternoon where he received his first letter.

Felix covered his mouth before the vomit could spill and staggered to the bathroom. He immediately bent over a toilet bowl and emptied the contents of the team’s late lunch together, pain scorching his stomach and mouth in a thick, bloody liquid. He gripped the edges of the bowl until his hands went white and the thin blue veins bulge against his skin; his throat burned terribly in a silent scream and Felix suddenly devolved into a crying fit.

He hadn’t cried since his brother died.

And at that point, the floodgates that help his emotions tightly together broke from the top, allowing the waters to gush out violently as the whole dam collapsed. Felix wept loudly, laughing a bit as his eyes blurred and wet hot trails burned through his cheeks and down his chin.

When Felix was finally done—an hour, at least, where most of the club students have gone home for the day, he stood up from his spot and staggered weakly towards the sink. The dark-haired boy took a long, embittered look into the mirror and all he saw was a stranger. A sickly, pale little thing—diminished, narrow-shouldered, and extremely thin. His face was bloodless except for his eyes and mouth, and the skin around his red pupils were dark with rings. An unlucky stranger. A lonely, damned, unlucky stranger.

_Unlucky, unlucky, unlucky._

The door opened to the bathroom and Felix wanted to surrender, right then and there.

“Felix, are you okay?”

Dimitri did not move from the door; there was a deliberate distance between them that Felix never noticed before. Usually Dimitri did not care for such things and crossed that boundary anyway. These days, he actually stood and spoke from afar. As though they were strangers.

“I think I’m sick.” He lowered his eyes and turned on the sink to wash his face. Even still, the water did nothing to his overwhelming fatigue and Felix was close to collapsing.

“Should I go fetch the nurse? She’s still around.”

There was no cruelty in Felix’s voice. No emotion or passion.

“She can’t help me. No one can.”

Dimitri shifted forward. “...Is there anything I can do for you?”

For the first time, Felix finally craned his head and fully focused on Dimitri. All of Dimitri. Not just his face or his eyes—all of him entirely. The young man was always taller than him; a strong body with broad shoulders, taut with lean muscles and healthy skin. Everything about him glowed gold and blue and he looked like a pendant in a way—always shining and dressed to impress. But that was shallow at best.

Felix stared at him as he did when they were boys and he finally saw for what Dimitri was in this moment. Dimitri was growing restless. He was tired. He was impatient. He was...mad. Even his smile twitched at the corners and his hands clenched and went loose periodically at his side.

Dimitri was tired; Felix wanted to die; they both hated this game of theirs.

“I think there is something you can do for me?” Felix started quietly.

“Yeah?”

Felix nodded slowly, eyes too hazy and watery to catch the small glint in Dimitri’s dark blue pupils. Just being near him, just being alone slid Felix back into a hyper sharp focus; the pastel square tiles on the wall—colors paling so close to white, as if the world went still just to become theirs again. The dark-haired boy spoke in a dull monotone, but the words spilled out in a half-sob, hands clenching on nothing.

“D-Dimitri, I _need_ —I want you to walk me home.”

He said no more; Dimitri crossed that border and clasped his hands into Felix’s, fitting so naturally like pieces of uncompleted puzzle lying in wait. A shudder. A sigh. Dimitri’s body language had long already given that something was off about him—barely concealing how he felt in that moment.

Mania, dementia, and shattering exhaustion possessed him like a vengeful spirit, and when Dimitri dipped his head over and kissed Felix—their first kiss, in the middle of the boy’s bathroom of their high school on a descending evening, Felix’s eyes fluttered with defeat and he gave himself up to his self-made enemy.

___________________

The world became a blur again.

Their feet barely seemed to touch the ground as Dimitri led Felix—hand in hand like their boyhood years. The walk itself was merely a blank space in his memory he could never fill for his mind was shot and empty. The streets, the trees, the nearby river, it was all a blur of nonsensical images without much meaning.

Somehow, he and Dimitri got home—Dimitri’s home, and ended up in his bedroom, still covered with those glow-in-the-dark stars of their childhood. The latter gently brought Felix down onto the bed they shared over many sleepovers in the act of intimate worship. Their clothes were torn off haphazardly— _who was the beast?_ and Dimitri held down Felix’s thin wrists as he nipped the boy’s neck with a hungry possession.

The dark-haired boy groaned, feeling pleasure stir hotly in his stomach; Dimitri’s knee pressed against the hardening bulge of his erection and he gave a soundless gasp as the young man began to grind with a maddening laugh. Felix turned away, tears already building at the corners, as he denied his companion any gesture or look.

Suddenly, a strong hand clasped over his chin and Dimitri forced him to meet his burning eyes. Up close the ring around his eyelids looked darker, flushed with blood and exhaust; the winter cold had paled him considerably and his lips were chapped with a bit of fresh blood. His fragility was terrifying. Sheer and fragile like tissue. His need was absolute—a fish needing water to live. His want was bottomless. A void. That sucked everything and everyone in. He licked the blood from his lips and the beast descended further and further down.

Everything turned hot. Everything burned. And everything went dark when a snarl sounded at Felix’s reddening ear—demanding and starving.

“Get on your stomach.”

Felix shuddered and turned around, the cool air of his room brushing over his backside—still bruised from today’s practice, and his bare bottom. Dimitri placed his roaming, gentle hands on the boy’s soft hips, dragging him down—his fingers dug into Felix’s skin and the boy’s head tilt back slightly with a moan.

“Ah…”

“ _Felix_ , _Felix_ , _Felix_ ,” Dimitri muttered like a sacred prayer; his hot breath merging with the chill air and casting sensations between them.

His hand wandered down towards Felix’s ass, fingers gripping the soft, plush skin possessively and he chuckled lowly. The smell of fragrant oil filled the dark room and something hot and wet touched the cleft of Felix’s ass.

The boy whimpered.

“D-Dimitri?”

“Hush, beloved. I’m just preparing you,” Dimitri muttered as he covered his palm in lube and tossed the empty bottle to the floor. He slathered his cock, the wet slick sound of his hand covering his length fully suddenly made Felix excited.

The dark-haired boy began to breath harshly into his pillow as he felt Dimitri’s hand slid up onto his quivering back, pressing down as if to encourage him to lean forward. Felix obeyed in a rare meekness, raising his ass up unconsciously; a hand gently patted that bottom and Felix practically shivered at the dark gaze that burned holes into his pale arched back. Suddenly, something thick and hot touched his pink entrance and sunk inside.

“Ah!”

“Shh...I’ll be gentle,” Dimitri whispered in his ear; he pressed a single finger between the cheeks and further down Felix’s tight walls.

He used his other hand to massage the small of his back, over all the wounds from kendo, and up near his neck. The mixture of pain and pleasure caused Felix to physically wither and he cried out into his pillow as Dimitri’s finger went up all the way. The sensation of being _filled_ made Felix’s own cock stirred and he unconsciously rolled his hips.

“Eager little thing, aren’t you?” The blonde prince murmured and pressed another finger inside, earning another whine from the quivering boy beneath him. “You’re so tight, Felix. You haven’t done it with anyone, have you?”

“I-I...”

Felix groaned and pushed back against the muscular body, his head hung between his shoulders with his long, black hair fanning out like streams of spilled ink. It gave Dimitri a sinful view, of the marble beauty that lay trapped before him, shaking and in near tears. The sight alone tore away at Dimitri’s fragile mask and the beast emerged with a growl as he jammed three fingers up—slick spilling out between the invading digits as he brushed up against Felix’s prostate.

The dark-haired boy cried out, arching his back and slender shoulder blades pushing together sensually, and tears rolled down his flushed cheeks.

“ _Answer_ me, Felix,” Dimitri growled. He leaned over and nipped the boy’s neck, teeth denting the marble skin with a threatening ecstasy. His fingers were roughing thrusting in and out of his lover, listening keenly to all the mewing and crying Felix had begun to make shamelessly. “Let me hear your voice!”

“N-No! No one but y-you!” Felix confessed, blinking his wet eyes rapidly as they traced over the head board and far wall; there were planets there, glowing an ominous green. Felix had placed those there himself when they first bought the damn stickers.

“Not even with that handsome captain of yours? He hasn’t bent you over the table and took you like a mindless whore?”

“No! T-This is my first time…”

“Make sense,” Dimitri hummed and finally pulled his fingers out, watching as Felix’s reddened hole clenched on _nothing_ ; a yearning to be abused and filled. “You’re too tight. Does it hurt?”

“Y-Yes…”

“Then I’ll be ever so gentle,” Dimitri lied cleanly through his teeth, which Felix picked up like a bell. But tonight, he was feeling empty and craved for the touch of his long-time companion, whose presence he robbed himself like an addict refusing a fix. Felix grew impatient and, somewhere deep in his mind, the boy wanted to be stuffed fully; he pushed himself back, wiggling his ass a bit, clearly provoking Dimitri with a rare wanton whimper: “Dimitri...please...I _need_ you…”

The beast growled; its eyes went dark with lust and the hands that clenched the hips tightened with claim as they pulled the poor victim down and pressed a hardened rod against the entrance. Dimitri crooned lowly and braced himself with restraint; he gently probed his thick, twitching cock into Felix’s hole and shallowly bucked his hips.

Felix cried out loudly and his hands clenched the pillow, fingers digging so deeply that he accidentally tore the cover. Tears spilled down his cheeks and stained the fabric as Dimitri began to gently pump himself, pushing the boy up and down on the bed.

“I always wanted this, Felix. I always dreamed of this. For years and years,” Dimitri grunted and leaned over to say it straight into Felix’s pink ears. “How your beautifully slender body slot against mine, like pieces of a puzzle not yet done. How your long hair clung to your sweaty back as I took you over and over and over.” He bit the soft lobe of the boy’s ear and Felix squeaked; the thrusting, once slow and precise, gradually became rough and sloppy—slamming into Felix’s plush ass eagerly.

Felix made the mistake of looking over his shoulder, his eyes red and swollen, and noticed Dimitri leering over him. His gaze blinded black with absolute lust. The golden prince—Demeter smiled ruefully. “You’re **mine**.”

“Yes!” Felix moaned out; his cock, trapped between his hardened stomach and the soiled sheets of the bed, had suddenly twitched upon an invading hand slink over and under. Dimitri chuckled darkly as he began to stroke his dark-haired lover roughly, his hips snapping in without pause, and Felix descending into outright sobbing.

“Then let me drown you, beloved.”

Dimitri stroked Felix with long hard beats, his grip resilient and unwavering. His cock continued to jab through Felix’s tight walls and up against his prostate with a never failing speed, his balls slapping against the base of the boy’s ass with wet sounds filling the room.

“A-Ahh!”

“There’s no one home, Felix. Be as loud as you want to be. Let me hear you!”

Felix fisted into his ruined pillow as Dimitri roughly bucked his hips and slapped his lover’s ass—uncharacteristically cruel and vicious. The prince ignored the pained cries and mad mutterings for him to slowly down, and greedily nipped his shoulder blades and back sharply.

The nerves of Felix’s body clenched tightly around Dimitri’s large cock, jolting ripples of pleasure all the way from the pit of his stomach to his abused prostate. He lifted his ass up higher, giving Dimitri direct access as he pressed the side of his face to the bed, whining.

“Dimitri...I’m close!”

“I know, my love. I know.”

His heavy body laid over Felix’s, his excited heart beating against the boy’s bitten back as he made the last few violent thrusts; his hand squeezed around Felix’s weeping cock and stroked quickly towards a twitching release. With one final snap of his hips, he fucked right into Felix’s prostate and emptied himself violently. Hot pleasure spilled deep and coated Felix’s insides white as the boy’s own excitement released into Dimitri’s hand and onto the sheets he was pressed up against. They cried in unison, the rise and fall of their joined voices fading away with the chill of the room.

When the prince finally pulled out and collapsed next to Felix, the pair stared at each other through the haziness of their visions. Felix breathed hard and swallowed as he watched Dimitri’s flicker in and out of consciousness. Gradually, Demeter faded away with the exhaustion of her strength and all that was left was the soft and wondrous boy Felix fell so in love with many years back—tender and warm. Dimitri smiled weakly, a clear muster of the remainder of his strength, and he reached over to grip Felix’s limp hand in a tight hold, their fingers entwined together.

“Will...will we be alright?” he asked hoarsely.

“I think so…,” Felix replied honestly, the darkness of sleep already edging at the corners of his vision.

“Ah, hah...that’s good. I was so worried I lost you forever. I love you, Felix.”

“I love you too, Dimitri.”

“Will you stay?”

Felix sighed out very slowly; his body was too ruined, too wrecked and fatigued for him to even move an inch. When he weakly shook his head, Dimitri chuckled lightly and pulled their sticky bodies closer in a loose embrace. And ever slowly, the golden prince’s dark blue eyes fell into very thin and murky slits until they disappeared behind fluttering blonde lashes.

And then the silence of a cool, starless night.

Felix gazed at the face of his night time lover, eyes tracing over Dimitri’s devastatingly handsome face. How at peace the boy was—they were, for the first time in the long time. And all Felix could think of was Dimitri, thinking of throwing himself into those strong, killing arms, over and over and over until he exploded into a million pieces, cutting deep into the man’s flesh and blood until they were one.

He smiled weakly; he reached over and pushed a loose strand of hair out of Dimitri’s hair, feeling strangely sentimental. But then he stopped and stared wide-eyed at the golden lock twirled around his pale finger. In the moonlight, it shone gold indeed, but with a keen crimson highlight. Felix then drew closer and recognized it immediately.

Dried blood.

___________________

The world’s last sounds were smothered by the black trees.

The air was sweet with a biting chill, with nothing but distant smoke from the semi-frozen lake and the faint smell of frozen-over leaves beneath a thin layer of frost. The land of overgrown railways and ramshackle farm houses glowed ominously beneath the low moon and it reflected in the passing river into the black horizon. The water was still flowing quickly, refusing to yield to the thin ice on the edges of the bank.

In the body-thick heaviness of the winter night air, a car pulled up into the small overpass looking beyond the depth of the river. High beams shone through the half-snowy, frosty air, piecing through the white veil and onto the passing waters below.

He stepped out, taking in the atmosphere with a simple glance before making back towards the trunk of his car. The black bag fell out with a heavy thud, sending a mixture of ice and snow in the air. He gave a soundless sigh—impassive, weary, and dragged the bag across the small lot and near the edge of the overlook, where the waters roared below.

The shadow of transformation had long passed within him and all that was left was the grand metamorphosis; the skin of his cocoon still shone across his fatigued face as he took a long stare down at the heavy-duty garbage bag. Something akin to old sadness passed, but only momentarily, and he then used the tip of his boot and shoved the bag off the overlook.

It rolled through the small bushes, snapping twigs and branches along the way before it struck the black surface of the water. Like blobs of the universes, the darkness melded against a greater darkness before being pulled under and becoming one for all eternity; once the draw strings of the bags disappeared with the great weight of purposefully-filled stones, he let out a small breath between his teeth—smoke blowing out from a beast.

The smell of winter frost rose like steam and there is a faint glimmer in the river’s surface from the moonlight. He watched attentively as the currents traveled on, deeper and deeper through the valley until all emotion breached beyond the horizon and outward into the vastness of space.

He was not afraid; he was never afraid. Not when all he ever needed in life is love. He begins to laugh once more, a heart so breakable and paper-thin beating incandescently hard against his rib cage. It was already broken, snapped in half, shattered across the cold floor, thrown against the wall, and all manner of violence. And yet, it’s still beating, reminding him ever so keenly that he is still human.

A human in love.

He wiped the wetness from his cheeks, peered off at the starless sky, and let out a mechanical moan.

_Felix ~_

___________________

_Garreg Mach Kendo Club Notice:_

_To all members,_

_We apologize for the short notice but all club activities will be canceled until further notice. For more information, come to the Office of Student Engagement and Activities._

_Thank you and please stay safe._

Felix had to rub his eyes twice in order to fully absorb the message taped in front of the locked door to the club room. He already knew the reason for the closing though he dreaded the truth all day—his captain was out.

While he had not seen the man all day, he assumed that he was simply busy. It was not until one of Felix’s kendo peers made an off-sided comment on how the stoic captain was nowhere in sight this morning for he was usually there to set up the studio for after school practice. That was when the letter head was taped sometime during lunch.

Felix kept staring at the message; his mind was already dipping down towards the deep, dark dread he had been withholding in his stomach all morning—images of insane ramblings from a mysterious stalker who may be crazy enough to commit murder. But then again, what if no one died?

What if Felix was simply overthinking things—that his confessor was safe and sound somewhere remote and that his captain was probably out sick. For what student would be that malicious and mad enough to even think of such a thing? Felix shook his head; if there was no kendo, then he would simply wait for Dimitri to be finished with baseball practice in the locker room. He just needed to get home and hide between Dimitri’s arms.

The turn of their relationship was a strange one, mostly for Felix. He, who had been so insistent on the separation of their respective realms now could not possibly leave Dimitri’s side, though that was more of a personal reason.

Talk of the search party going nowhere has kept the school under an oppressively dark shadow and Felix’s own terror with letters from a crazed admirer had him rely on his childhood love more than ever.

He was not sure if they were dating—he certainly was not going to outright admit it despite all the morning kisses, side smiles, and hand holding. But now, all he really needed was to be with someone safe and secure as the world around him slowly collapsed.

That was all that mattered at this point. Getting home.

Felix sighed and made his way to the locker room. There were a few people there, chattering mindlessly in the back as Felix kept his gaze centered at the dirty tiles beneath his own locker. Normally, he didn’t care for ridiculous gossip and prattle, usually drowning out everyone’s voices with his own vindictive thoughts. But then he heard a name.

“Dimitri sure is in a good mood today, huh?”

Felix stopped; he looked up.

“Oh yeah, better than usual. It’s like he won the lottery or something. I wonder what made his day.”

“Well, whatever it is, that’s a win for us. Maybe he’ll go easy with the drills. My arm still fucking hurts from last week.”

“Don’t let him catch you bad mouthing or you might get a slap at the back of the head. Then you’ll never wake up.”

“God don’t remind me. His strength is...terrifying. He keeps breaking and denting all of our bats. Man’s gotta learn some control.”

“Yeah, well, take advantage of his good mood today, okay? Come, let’s hurry before he notices that we’re missing.”

With that, the players left out the back door towards the athletic fields and Felix was left alone, standing in front of his lockers with his ears burning red. His heart was pumping quickly and when he touched his chest, he could feel it beat against his own hand. So this was it; the ecstasy of their unification. Perhaps Felix was wrong to deny Demeter after all. But he will never admit it.

The dark-haired boy sighed out with a small smile and he reached over to open his locker. The dented door swung with a creak and there, Felix’s good mood immediately faded to a stomach churning grimace when he saw it: another letter.

Of course, he should have expected it. He had received a twisted tidbit every day since he was confessed to, but today. Today was different. Somehow, he knew that this letter would be different—not some disturbing observation or even a mad fantasy, but darker and malevolent in nature. Something that could shake the very fabric of his being in this very space and time.

Or Felix could throw it away. He could throw it away and throw all consecutive letters away. He could dump it in the trash, walk home with Dimitri, and sort out his life while ignoring some poor person’s pleas for attention. He could do that.

And yet, his hand was already moving to peel back the flap at the horrifying truth inside.

_My Dearest Felix,_

_I must have frightened you terribly with my bouts of mania so I do sincerely apologize; I am an individual of great passion and seeking you taken by others, I simply lost myself. But know this: I would never hurt you. I would never see you cry or despair ever again—once I take care of all obstacles in the way of our love, we can begin with the rest of our lives._

_As such, I hope you appreciate my last present below; your friend was quite the combatant. Shame he had to look your way, my beloved._

_Worry not—we will be together forever._

_Eternally yours; a love everlasting._

A photo.

Just one.

One photo:

A champion on his back; the sky mirroring the crimson sunsets of a dying afternoon; white eyes staring up at the sky; a grotesque display of love.

Death.

Felix immediately stuffed the letter and picture into his duffle bag as he searched desperately for his phone. His hands were strangely still and calm, but he was not convinced one second; Felix breathed out in short counts of three, his shoulders falling up and down automatically in a precise, quickened fashion. Numbness settled first; panic second. His fingers automatically searched for Dimitri’s number—once placed under the “blocked” list, in his favorites and he pressed the phone icon.

He needed Dimitri. He needed Dimitri here now and it didn’t matter if the boy had practice. Dimitri would drop everything for him. Dimitri would leave the team for him. Dimitri would protect him. Dimitri would take him away and love him more than any creature on this cruel earth. He was Dimitri’s and Dimitri was his. Dimitri was---

“Felix?” A kind yet weary voice answered immediately on the other end. “What’s wrong? We’re in the middle of practice.”

“Dimitri, I need to go home. Now,” Felix said quietly.

“Oh? Oh, of course. Uh, give me a few minutes to try and talk to my coach, okay?”

“Please hurry.”

Felix scarcely heard Dimitri’s repeated reassurances over the rush of blood in his throat. The line went dead with his lover’s promise of a return and he quickly threw everything into his duffle bag and slammed his dented locker shut.

He still had all the letters saved for the first. He still had all the proof to show Dimitri his mania, to show the Goddess his suffering and weakness in hopes of being kept in her protective arms from spring to winter, away from the lurking darkness of the abyss. Dimitri would get here, they would get home, they would talk, and Dimitri in all of infinite, golden knowledge would know what to do. He always knew what to do—Felix was sure of it.

Everything will be fine so long as they are together.

As the dark-haired boy paced around, blood rushing from his quivering heels to the heat of his numb head, he suddenly stopped. Dimitri’s locker, which was on the other side of Felix’s, was slightly open. The golden-haired, blue-eyed prince was always so neat and tidy with his things—a display of his own exterior superiority and organization. He was always in control, showed that he was always in control, and nothing was ever out of place.

Perfect, perfect, perfect Dimitri.

Somehow, the sight of the locker bulging out slightly made Felix flinch a bit; he needed distraction. He needed something to hold and move around as his mind throbbed viciously between the lines of hysteria and serenity. Felix silently clasped his hands over Dimitri’s loose lock—arrogance in the simplest form of leaving the thing unlocked—and pulled it open with a desperate yank.

Felix could grab all of Dimitri’s things and wait for him at the door so they could just leave right away. He did not want to be here anymore—be at this school, this town, not even his own house. He wanted to go straight to the sanctuary of Dimitri’s room, still covered in glow-in-the-dark stars and the warmth of a childhood sleepover. He could stay there forever as the world from gray to green and not mind one bit. They just needed to leave this slaughterhouse as soon as---

The metal bat fell over to the floor with a clang.

It rolled lopsided due to being nearly bent on one side, and stopped right at the tip of Felix’s shoes. His eyes immediately traced the outright damage along side the front and middle; when he reached down to pick it up, the light caught something smeared red on the side—like paint in a way. Except it was dried and crusted over.

Felix stared at that smudge as the edge of the locker room sung with the distant sound of machines, whirling and whirling and _whirling_. Slowly, he reached a hand out to touch it, only for a piece of long, blonde hair to wrap around his finger. It shone like a thread of gold beneath the clinical lights with a red, crusted highlight.

Dimitri’s hair was not long.

Felix’s attention was centered so long at the piece of hair that he just noticed something else fell out of the overstuffed locker. An instant camera. He gently placed the bat leaning against the locker and bent down to pick it up. It was the modern cameras that many girls in the school used to take pictures of happy memories and end-of-the-year pictures. They would take the freshly printed pictures and hang them obnoxiously on their walls and fairy lights tied inside their lockers.

Felix had seen a dozen times, too much for his liking, how friends settled close to one another and held the pastel pink camera backwards to catch a flurry of exposed tongues and smiles. Dimitri having a camera like that made sense; he was amiable, popular, and beloved. Surely, the prince would have nothing but happy memories to look back on with a crippling fondness.

Felix fumbled awkwardly with the menu as he searched for the memory bank. His broken curiosity and apprehension had gathered victory against him, and the envy of the disquieted lover forced his hand with the invasion of his boyfriend’s privacy. And yet, somehow, he knew this was wrong. Not because he was invading Dimitri’s trust. But something else. Something much more darker. Emptier. An intuition. A warning.

The bat had already set him up for the inevitable fall and what he found next simply tore asunder the wonderful fantasy he had built for himself.

Pictures of himself. Not the ones where he would try and look away, half consenting to an awkward picture, but photos at strange, poised angles. Some blurred. Some clear. All of Felix. When he’s walking through the halls, trying to block out everyone’s presence with much; when he’s sitting alone at lunch, head turned away and daydreaming out the window; when he’s training in the club room, sparring with his captain and peers. Pictures of him sleeping, taken from the cold outside and through his thinly veiled window—his small form cuddled up beneath the sheets, peaceful and demure.

Every ugly detail blurred to a bizarre perfection; the dark of his hair blacker than usual, the paleness of his skin light like porcelain, the red of his eyes burning like disturbed coals in a fire. The world went still; sounds lingered in the back, and Felix felt himself slip underwater to a muffled, blurry underworld as he flickered onto the last few pictures.

Of _her_ . Of _him_.

Skin. Flesh. Blood. Bone. Sinking deeper and deeper and deeper into Demeter’s cold and cruel earth.

For a long moment, Felix held the camera, clutching it as if he feared it would come alive and slither between his fingers like water. Then he looked up and blinked away the tears. The locker room gleamed with so much harsh and sharp detail—lights glaring off every surface and assaulting the dark-haired boy’s pained vision.

He could feel every soft fold of his clothes against his skin, his long hair brushing up against the side of his neck and down his backside in a flutter, his own breath burning against the skin of his throat. The details grew harsher and harsher until it all washed away with an incoming numbness that struck him when he finally focused on a new element in front of him.

Dimitri.

_Demeter._

“Oh.” Felix’s tone was meticulously far away, like a bell ringing from a valley.

Dimitri had his hand pressed over his mouth—seldom in shock, but more like the anticipation of a yawn. He looked at Felix as if he forgot the boy was ever there, and behind that hand came a slow shifting grin.

“I see I kept you waiting,” he said in a rising singsong voice, half-teasing, half bitter. The golden prince stepped forward into the harsh light of the locker room—his realm, and smiled amiably, bright and shining. He lifted his other hand up and held Felix’s cold face; how steady and warm that hand was.

“I’m sorry, my beloved. I took too long,” he murmured and darted to kiss the side of Felix’s neck; a smile imprinted deep into the skin like soft snow. “You’re so cold.”

“Yes.”

“Come on,” Dimitri began in a tone a mother would use to coax her unruly child; he gently took the camera back from Felix, who let it go without protest, and the bat. He placed them back into his locker and shut the door quietly—a demonstration on how one would clean up their toys. Once he finished, he turned back to Felix, blue eyes alight too shimmering and blinding like the sun reflecting on freshly fallen snow. “Let’s go home.”

He was pressing up against him, pressing up against him so hard and tight that Felix could not breathe. Dimitri hummed a song from childhood, one they often fell asleep too, and rubbed circles all along the small of Felix’s back.

The machines of the school whirled in the back, echoing muffled through the walls of the locker room.

“May I go fetch something I left in the club room,” Felix asked in a voice that was not his.

“Of course, beloved. I’ll go meet you up front, okay,” Dimitri murmured in response and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Eventually, he was let go, so willingly that he wondered if it were a trap. Felix straightly walked out of the locker room without looking back, without acknowledging how Dimitri watched him from the lockers—a predator disguised beneath a fond smile.

While it was too early in the afternoon for many of the clubs to be out, Felix could not help but sense a keen dread wash over him, a dread of complete and utter absense. He craned his head, trying to catch any passerby noises from the upper levels and down the halls, but he heard nothing.

Absolutely nothing. Not a mutter or even the usual ring of laughter. Empty.

Felix passed over the locked club room and made a right down the science hallway where one of the emergency exits was located at the very end. He kept on going slowly as he watched the red exit sign blink in the distance; his mind, shot and comatose. He could not think of anything. He was unable to think of anything.

The boy’s perceived world and the veil that protected him from the outside has all been torn away, leaving him completely exposed to the harsh elements that invited themselves inside. And his protector and lover stood at that very edge of his ruined sanctuary, smiling ever so sweetly as though he never tore down the veil in the first place. Or perhaps it was Felix’s fault for unconsciously seeking to correct his ignorance.

Dimitri, Dimitri, Dimitri.

The prince did not even sound mad at the revelation, merely exerting a motherly gentleness as though Felix were ready to explode right then and there. But Felix didn’t. He couldn’t. Dimitri had stolen away his rage, his fury, his wrath, after weeks and weeks of torture. No, Felix was not angry. Felix was scared. He was scared of Dimitri. And yet, somehow, as he took those small steps down the hall, there existed a hesitance. For Felix knew deep down that he loved Dimitri unconditionally. Love was trying to overwhelm his terror, but that was quickly turned over on his side when he heard the doors at the very start of the hallway open and shut.

Then came a singsong call of a siren.

_~ Felix_

Felix quickly dove behind a set of lockers and peered out with a shaky eye. Dimitri.

He had closed the double doors behind him with a sharp lock, and slowly descended down the hallway. And Felix saw it—not the Dimitri of his boyhood or the Dimitri, prince of the realm of light, but Demeter—a beautifully vengeful goddess, seeking the loss of love as the earth died around her.

A darkening terrified face of ecstasy, lit up by angelic song and spotlight from over above; a beast with a human face, creeping out of a darkened cave; the slow crawl of death, invisible to the living eye, seeping into the cracks and out like mist.

He was walking straight with the walls stretching out before him, bending to his will as the lights above flickered once before going out in a violent screech. Glass broke beneath heavy heels, echoing down the hall in a merciful alert to the one hiding in the darkness. Each crack was a snap against the forced calmness of his prey until there was nothing left but a cruel, hyperventilating fear. A smile upon the face of an angel.

_Felix ~_

Felix was standing heedlessly at the edge of a cliff, peering out towards the pitch black horizon—the back exit door is just in plain sight. He was afraid to jump, afraid to step off and trust the cold air. But the predator is slowly stalking from behind, eyes flaring out like a burning winter moon in the night. There it goes, the small twitch of a smile—neither perfected for the audience or Felix stood at the edge, but for himself; the carnivorous grin ready to devour, the true mark of the beast hiding beneath an angelic porcelain mask.

_Felix ~_

Felix stayed motionless, a captive audience. He was not sure if the beast knew he was there, standing await on that cliff to jump; waiting nearby with a careful eye on the glowing exit sign right above his escape to the outer world. The predator’s face expressed nothing except contentment—he was a born actress and he was terrible at understanding theatrical symbolism.

But as those boots and the growing explosions of light above to complete darkness came closer until the shadows veiled the world all around them, there came the name once more; the sound emerging from a feigned human tongue masking its animalistic call.

_Felix ~_

The darkness of the cliff beckoned to Felix—demanded for him to jump, take that plunge before the jaws of death clasped over him. The red light of the exit light flickered in a warning as the glass cracked right next him. A hiss of the sweet call twisted on his back, boiling over with impatience and fury.

_Felix!_

He closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and jumped off the edge as the beast lunged at him. The door knob was just in his sight, the outside world beckoning him with notion of eternal freedom with endless blue skies and miles and miles of broken asphalt. It was just the crack of the door, revealing the light before the hot, laughing breath stung against his neck like a thousand suns.

**_F e l i x._ **

**W h e r e**

**a r e**

**y o u**

**g o i n g?**

___________________

Dimitri was always gentle. From the day they first met as children to the day they entered school together, he had been nothing but gentle and soft with Felix. His words were gentle, his touches were gentle, and even his looks were to pacify and calm.

But there existed moments, far and few in between, in which Dimitri’s own thinning patience snapped and that gentleness twisted darkly into controlled violence. Controlled in the sense where it was hardly bestial or crazed, but violent in the absolute exertion of his strength, in his disguised words, in his clear madness. Felix had seen it once with the dented locker before Dimitri immediately fell back into his usual smiling persona. And when they made love together.

Felix could not feel his arm. The pressure there was so tight that it cut off all blood coming through to his hand. And before he could really acknowledge it, the boy was picked up into the strong, possessive arms of his beloved prince. Dimitri gazed down upon him, smiling ever so radiantly and filled with overwhelming love and adoration. He was a practitioner of good moods and amiable expressions; Felix saw the cold fury behind those eyes and vainly searched for mercy: he saw none.

“Oh, Felix, Felix, Felix. Where were you thinking of running off to?” Dimitri cooed softly as he turned around and began walking back; he was not heading out of the school.

“Home,” the dark-haired boy whispered, afraid that any thrashing will result in a broken limb; his arm was already throbbing, a purple ring forming around the bicep of where Dimitri squeezed and lifted him up.

“You’re supposed to wait for me, beloved. How are we supposed to correct this impatience of yours?”

“You’re a killer.”

“Hm.”

“You...You killed them,” Felix murmured off, his voice weak and merely a hiss. He wanted to cry but could not find the will. Everything was numb, and he could do nothing more but surrender himself physically in Dimitri’s arms, limp and dead.

“Don’t sound so betrayed. It was not that I lied to you.”

“All those letters...it was all you…”

“Yes, because I love you,” Dimitri stated bluntly; he kicked open one the door of the lab rooms to the side and allowed it shut behind him, locking effectively. Felix’s heart pounded furiously until his blood went white and swollen over violently.

But he did not move, he did not struggle. He knew. Dimitri knew. And both resigned quietly to their fate. Dimitri laid Felix down on one of the long tables and placed both hands on either side of the boy’s slender hips. At first all they could do was stare at each other, slowly accepting the reality they found themselves in.

All walls were torn down, everything was exposed—all natures and evils on the table. Dimitri was not as this perfect prince as Felix thought, and Felix himself was not as dark and unnerving as he suspected. Then Dimitri leaned in to kiss him, and Felix tasted a dream turning inward into a nightmare.

“I did it all for you. I couldn’t stand the sight of them.”

“You didn’t have to kill them! You didn’t…”

“Well, it’s too late to tell me that.” Dimitri tried to smile, but his face fell flat. He was getting tired of holding back, of revealing to Felix the true extent of his vicious, animalistic rage. His need to possess and monopolize. In fact, all Felix could see hovering above him was sickly god, leering down with hungry, dark eyes and a mouth curled downward into a rare, unpleasant frown.

“You wouldn’t even _look_ at me, Felix. No, less talk or respond to any of my texts. And then the way you listened and looked at them...no, I didn’t want to lose you. Not to them. Not to anyone.”

“Murderer. You slaughtered two innocent people because they talked to me. You’re fucking sick, Dimitri. You’re fucking sick in the head,” Felix hissed, finding the strength to exert some spite in his hoarse voice.

“I _know_.” Dimitri smiled this time, but only barely. Suddenly, his self-control and restrain visibly snapped in front of Felix’s eyes as his hands shot out and pinned the boy’s white thin wrists over his head, effectively pinning him down against the science table.

Felix had no chance to think. He felt Dimitri leaned over and plant butterfly kisses on the side of his neck, a tongue tracing along his beating pulse. The young man nibbled the slender curve of his bobbing Adam's apple and down near his collar bone, tasting every bit of him with the eloquence of a fine diner. And Felix choked at how their chests pressed together, how Dimitri’s heavily muscular frame suffocated him from above ever so lovingly. He was trapped on all sides but a love so obsessive and detached from all figments of the world that even the gods shrink away from it.

“H-How do you know I won’t go to the police? I have all the letters! I can take your camera,” Felix huffed out in short, breathy intervals.

“Oh, you can,” Dimitri said simply. He pulled away momentarily and nodded off towards his backpack which he dropped nearby. “I brought the camera with me. If you want to go to the police now and take the evidence, go ahead.”

It was inhuman, the way Dimitri regarded Felix; chilly and aloof as one would see a stranger. He had suddenly become inaccessible, unreachable, and untouchable—a god elevated beyond the clouds and into the high heavens for judgment. He was waiting—he was taking Felix’s next response seriously. This was not an inquiry for show.

“I...I can?” Felix asked in a squeak, eyes bulging out wildly in surprise.

“Go ahead. Push me off and leave me. Go tell the police. I was ready to die the day you turned away from me. There’s nothing else left.”

“You can’t fucking say that. What about Fhirdiad University? What about baseball?”

“I don’t care about any of those things. All I need is you.”

“You can’t be serious...”

“Go ahead, beloved,” Dimitri cooed sweetly. His face was more opaque now than serene, as white as marble. He even pulled away from Felix, an open invitation for the boy to kick him and run.

A shiver passed by Felix’s body and he went still on the cold, hard table. He searched desperately for the strength to shove Dimitri off of him, to take the boy’s backpack and his things and set off to the sheriff’s office. He wanted to be far, far, far away from Dimitri, safe in his room. And Felix nearly laughed:

That was a lie.

He loved Dimitri too much. His love was still so buried beneath dangerously nostalgic memories of sleepovers and daytime walks. His love was torn and wounded by the ascension of one realm over the other, transforming into a well denied yearning. Now, he was not so sure what he was feeling.

He hated Dimitri. He hated how the man came into his life and stole away two innocent lives simply from the distinction of his own mad love. And he loved him so bitterly that it hurt. It hurt, and stung, and tore deep into his skin that Felix let out a sob and covered his eyes.

Dimitri slinked forward and accepted the other boy’s silent defeat.

“Of course you can’t. Neither of us can. We were made for each other, Felix. We would be absolutely miserable apart. If you were ever taken away from me, I would bring a cruel winter upon this world never seen before,” Dimitri whispered rather excitedly as he wiped the small tears cascading down Felix’s flushed cheeks. The boy’s loving touch alone made Felix cry even harder, with short hiccups interrupting the soft choking. His other hand slinked down and gently spread Felix’s legs apart; the dark-haired boy gasped out, wet eyes exploding with a shaky panic.

“Dimitri,” he started, his voice climbing upward to a shrill. “Dima, _no_. No, I don’t want this, please. Let me go, I just want to go home.”

“No, Felix. You need to see that you’re _mine_.” Dimitri’s grip tightened on the soft underside of Felix’s thighs, squeezing as if to remind the weeping boy of the extent of his strength. When Felix did not move and shut his eyes, head turned to the side to show the beautiful curve of his neck, Dimitri’s dark smile burned deep into the latter’s skin—a brand to mark him for all eternity.

“Shhh, don’t cry, beloved. I promise it will all be over soon,” he whispered; a lock of damp hair clung to Felix’s forehead and he felt Dimitri reach over to push it back, kissing the wet skin underneath with a killing tenderness.

“Please...Dima, _please_ ,” Felix begged with a half-sob, shoulders shaking viciously. There was a disoriented note to his haggard breathing as though every inhale burned his throat.

Dimitri hummed softly and pulled down the boy’s pants and tossed it to the side. His hands were unrelenting, his will unshakable, and his need absolutely bottomless. Nothing in Felix’s mad blubbering and choking begging did anything to stop his golden-haired prince from his cruelty. A hand clasped over his reddened length; Dimitri slowly stroked as he undid his own pants.

“You’re so beautiful. Enticing dangerous desires in every person who gazes upon your form. How will I be able to keep you to myself if everyone wants you? Perhaps I should lock you inside, keep you where no one can see you…”

“Dimitri, I d-don’t want this.” Felix’s stammer grew more and more severe with every word in his plea until he could hardly understand himself. “I just want to go home.”

“I am your home; you are mine.”

Something dark and terrifying moved through Dimitri’s face like a passing shadow; his large cock twitched excitedly with precum already coming down the thick length. He slathered it without removing his unseeing gaze from Felix’s heaving form, eyes tracing along the boy’s red wet face and his bitten neck and collarbone.

His other hand continued to stroke Felix slowly—deliberately, as if to draw out all terrified sounds from Felix: whimpers, broken sobs, frantic pleads, and a flurry of moans followed with a quick mantra of Dimitri’s childhood name: _Dima, Dima, Dima_.

As expected, making love with Dimitri was not gentle. This was the one field where he refused all mercy and kindness. Hunger and grief did not go together well, and Dimitri was a poor child from their broken marriage; he lusted for warmth and fought for control. The prince with hair of the glimmering sun and eyes like the ocean smiled ruefully with a cruelty that made Felix airless. He slipped his cock into that tight ring of muscle and in between the tight, swollen walls until he was fully nestled inside.

Dimitri grind his hips and snapped them in, feeling every nerve twitching in Felix’s body—the poor boy gave a cry and shook his head rapidly, tears falling down his cheeks. With one hand gripping Felix’s hip firmly, enough to leave marks, Dimitri began to fuck the dark-haired boy unkindly. He fucked him hard and quick without any build up, chasing a self pleasure, and rending the act of rape into a twisted transformation of Felix becoming a mere cock sleeve.

“A-Ahh, no!”

Felix’s eyes widened with burning sunsets and he squealed. His hands clenched into tight fists and he weakly beat the powerful body dominating him from above. Dimitri’s chest was as hard as stone and the attempt alone made his rapist chuckle lowly as he sped up his thrusts, slamming into his small little body with a force that kicked back Felix’s weeping breath. He tried to close his legs and kick the other boy away, but Dimitri tightened his grip on his thigh and dragged him down.

The only sounds that filled that darkening room was wet skin slapping roughly against wet skin, slick pouring out of Felix’s abused hole from Dimitri’s invading cock. The prince edged Felix’s legs higher, wider, until he slammed right into the boy’s prostate.

“Dima, no, no, no, _please_!” Felix screamed out, thrashing wildly.

“Shush now,” Dimitri grunted, mean-spirited. His other hand stroked Felix’s cock in unison with his thrusts, quick and brutal without a second pause.

Felix’s entire body was being pushed up and down against the cold surface of the table until his back began to turn red from the friction. As he screamed and cried out openly from the powerful strength of Dimitri’s unwavering hips, pain and pleasure swirling in the bottomless pit of his groin and sheering upward against his reddened cock.

Eventually, the noises died to a small whimper, and Felix lulled his sweaty head to the side. He stared mindlessly at the dark overhead windows of the room, too high to properly peer inside, but wide enough to allow the lights of the outside in. Except the afternoon had gone dark and everyone had definitely gone home for the day—how long were they in here? His head was empty, so destroyed by extreme love and confusion that the only possible thought that emerged was a faint want for sleep. For death.

Above, Demeter laughed, echoing her right as a cruel, almighty god.

Before Felix could register it, Dimitri bit his neck until blood was drawn and bottomed himself fully into the boy. Felix’s own cock pumped painfully with hot ribbons of cum, painting his chest and pale face white. The prince—the goddess—the killer collapsed his head against Felix’s, not once noticing how unbearably still and white the boy had gone.

He was still staring out at the wall, eyes unable to fully comprehend where he was or who he is. All he knew was that the world beyond these doors were not for him anymore and the loving arms that kept him still would never let him go. He was succumbing to the darkness, ever so slowly, and still in that murkiness, Dimitri’s chilly voice cut through his consciousness like a knife.

“I love you.” Demeter declared, lips pressing softly against Felix’s bleeding neck wound; he spoke too quietly, too kindly, too gentle for a beast. “And I will _never_ let you go.”

Of course, Felix believed him. He never doubted Dimitri. And before he slipped into the dark waters of his mind, he let out a shuddering laugh without any emotion. An unsteadiness unmatched by even Dimitri’s own lack of sanity, one from a broken toy, ringing out over and over and over again.

And then the batteries went out with a hiss.

___________________

“Master Fraldarius.”

“Master Fraldarius.”

“ _Master Fraldarius_!”

Felix opened his eyes; the sheen of the overhead light struck him so vibrantly that he had to blink twice in order to recover from its glare. When the blurred details of the world around him gradually returned to their irritable sharpness, he found himself in a room—his room—his studio, still covered in sweat, rags, and broken wood pieces.

He glanced around, disoriented, and finally peered up at a girl standing over him—hair set aflame by the warmth of red short locks. Her mouth turned downward into a fierce grimace and Felix suddenly remembered where he was.

“Oh, Leonie. I apologize, I did not realize you were there,” he stated, tracing over the thin lines of mild disapproval on his star kendo student.

“Master Fraldarius, I left you alone for a minute and you drift off! Were you that tired from today’s practice?” Leonie asked and tilted her head, incredulous. She was always one to be tightly wound with such things like lucidity. Though that was why he liked her best.

“You simply caught me in a rare moment of weakness. That’s all.”

“Hm. Are you alright? You were muttering in your sleep.”

Felix nodded absently, his head still ringing like a church bell. “Worry not. It was just...a bad dream. That’s all. Nothing I can’t get over.”

The apprentice seemed to accept this excuse with a small smile and took a seat down beside the master kendo instructor. The air around them was warm with the slight aroma of flowers—it was spring and Felix had to open the windows while his students trained dutifully throughout the day. The sun shone through and highlighted the wet floorboards with a light shimmer and the birds sung sweetly of love and ambrosia.

“You’ve been working hard,” Felix said, veering off topic and staring Leonie straight in her eyes. She lit up at the sudden acknowledgment from the man and waited with a restrained, twitching smile as he continued on. “I’m sure you’ll be fully prepared for this week’s upcoming regional championship.”

“D-Do you really mean that, Master Fraldarius? I mean...I didn’t make it last year.”

“Nonsense. It’s foolish to think that one loss can set you back so terribly. You trained and improved amazingly since then and I have complete faith in your skills.” The master leaned forward and rested his chin against the palm of his calloused hand. “Besides, even I lost a few tournaments in my youth. It took my three tries before I could make regionals.”

Leonie shook her head. “Impossible.”

“I mean it! There’s nothing more cruel than a repeated loss, but you have to keep trying. Trying until your dying breath.”

“How intense. But I suppose that’s why you’re one of the masters,” Leonie said, drifting off a bit in a rare moment of detachment. Her cheeks had a bit of a pink dusting to them and she gazed off at the sunbeams radiating through the windows. “Rumor has it that Master Jeralt Eisner will be in attendance this year.”

Felix’s chest tightened irritably and he rolled his eyes with a groan. “Don’t remind me,” he muttered darkly.

Leonie huffed. “You’re just mad because you lost to him last year!”

“May I remind you, dear girl, that he’s been in the Kendo association for fifty years while I was promoted two years ago? As if I had any chance of beating that old dog…”

“He thought it was really impressive that you climbed the ladder in such a short span,” Leonie reminded him keenly, brandishing a wide grin. “What, you’ve only been doing kendo for like...five years? I think you’re the youngest in the association.”

“And they treat me to my age. Don’t remind me,” Felix grumbled; he rubbed the bridge of his nose with a small sigh and placed a hand on Leonie’s broad shoulder with a pat. “But listen girl, you’ve made impressive waves. I have no doubt you’ll surpass me in the coming years, but for now, keep humble and practice well. I would like to see you succeed in regionals. That medal looks better around your neck anyhow than what’s-his-name?”

“C-a-s-p-a-r,” Leonie elongated, each letter growing with a darker and deeper spite than the next. His star students grimaced with gritted teeth and threw a loathsome look to the ground, near her feet. Felix still remembered the humiliating loss Leonie suffered when the cheery boy completely destroyed her in their sparring. A rival in the making.

“Don’t mind him and focus on your own talents. You should at least be happy to make regionals.”

“You’re right.” She nodded in a half-agreement but still sighed, frustrated. “Thank you though, Master Fraldarius. I really appreciate the advice, especially since I’ve been rather critical of myself as of late. Will you be at the regionals as well?”

“Of course. And I will standby and represent you during the tournament so you don’t have to worry about Master Charon doing it—not that you should. She’s as good as a support as any other,”

“She was drunk last year, Master Fraldarius,” Leonie said bluntly.

“I know,” Felix replied back in kind. “And that won’t change this year, but I’ll be there so worry not.”

Suddenly, their small space of gentle comfort and bonding was interrupted by the booming blare of a car horn, thundering through the studio with a bit of a rumble. Leonie shot up and a funny smile slit across her face—second hand embarrassment absolute and clear, but mixed in with the affections of a young daughter.

“I’m so sorry Master Fraldarius, but I have to go.”

Felix nodded understandably. “Where is your father taking you this time?”

“Hunting. He’s going to show me how to use a rifle,” Leonie stated proudly.

“Makes sense. It is spring—the perfect time to go out on the field. Just be aware of all the deer mating.”

“I will! Thank you again Master Fraldarius!” Before the teenage red head left the studio, she made a quick turn around and stared at Felix, expression suddenly twisted with a small, lingering concern. “Oh, and uh, master?”

He cocked his head and silently gestured for her to continue.

“I hope things are alright with you. You’ve been so far away recently.”

“Just a lack of sleep, but I appreciate your attentiveness.” He waved a hand and even offered a small smile, though it was weak. “Now go on: enjoy the spring while you can.”

Leonie spared her master a final grin before bolting out of the studio and out into the parking lot where her loving father was waiting. And Felix sat, listening to the sounds of the pick up truck pull out and sped away with a gas-gusting roar; the sounds of enamored birds and the spring breeze fluttering through the trees returned him to the empty space of his studio, and he realized that the day was over.

And there came the quiet.

Spring, the sweet, sweltering season had left the man strangely vulnerable and nostalgic, and he stood up, absorbing the mild warmth of the sun. For the past few weeks, he had been taken over at periodic moments but panicking dreams of his own boyhood and as he stood in that realm of light, Felix wondered keenly on what brought that change. Perhaps he feared old age coming, though he was hardly ‘old’ in any sense. In fact by all standards, most would consider him lucky to be so young and thriving.

Finally, the man blinked himself back to the world; Felix broke the small sanctuary he had set for himself—always so momentarily, and reached down to pick up a used towel.

It was not until nightfall where he finished up the entire school inside and outside. Felix usually took this solitary time to ensure everything was properly put back together anyway—time for him to be alone and relax as he thought of new lessons for the coming days. Especially with regionals, training had become especially brutal, and Felix knew his students were getting thrown around a bit too much with his methods. Guilt flooded his mind and he wondered if he should slow down; Felix felt like laughing.

He was a tragic perfectionist.

Once the man out back all of the equipment for the night, he locked up the school and made the quiet drive home. Most days, he left late and traveled down the main road, which usually emptied out once he crossed the border of the city towards the rural countryside. The night was more brutal here, more oppressive and powerful once the light of the skyscrapers died away in the glittering distance.

From here on out, the drive was long and gentle, enough where Felix feared himself falling asleep on some occasions. The moon glowed overhead and the stars slowly came into view as the shadows fell over Felix like a blanket; he blinked his grogginess away and turned on the radio, allowing the over-enthusiastic voice of Fhirdiad’s top radio host to blare into the disquieting space of his car. The man, a little too hyped on Felix’s liking, was the only voice that could keep him up during this time and he listened attentively as the man began to holler wildly.

_Gooooooddd Evvening, Fhirdiaaddd City!!! How are we doing tonight, folks?! Man, I just fucking love this city!!! It’s wild, it’s crazy, and it never, ever sleeps—kinda like my boys after hitting the clubs, am I right?! Well, I got some wacky, low key fucked up news for all you good folks tonight. And when I mean fucked up, I mean brain sizzling dementia! Man, even I couldn’t stomach this shit and I’ll eat anything—even Chris’ mega ultra chili—don’t give me that look, dude, that shit fucking buurrrns. Now, what news do I have for you? Well, lock your doors and windows, hide in your rooms and listen herrree:_

Papers began to flip into the microphone; Felix both admired and detested the host’s causal unpreparedness.

_Ohhhh, I knew I didn’t like reading this shit. You know, this is the type of shit you find on Blue Badges or something because it. Is. Messed. Up! Listen here good folks: A pair of hikers just stumbled upon a gruesome sight at the Tailtean Plains—one can consider it a body, though they described it as..._

Papers flip over—a gurgling noise of disgust from the throat.

‘ _A pile of mush, almost like if someone chucked the body into a wood shredder and then stomped on the remains’. Yeah, that poor fella was beaten up that badly! Even some members of Fhirdiad Police and Forensics had to get counseling after going to the site to recover it. And apparently, that body bag sloshed like good old ground beef._

Another choking sound. Quiet mutterings of ‘fuck’ over the microphone.

_A-Anyway, after they recovered the remains, it was reported in an official press release that the body belonged to a certain Alois Rangeld. Ah, Mr. Rangeld! Chris, Chris—wasn’t he that funny fucker we met last year at the regional Kendo tournament? Yeah, I think he was one of the instructors. Man, well folks, good old Alois worked as a minor instructor with the Fhirdiad Kendo league. The poor man was reported missing a week ago by Master Felix Fraldarius when he failed to show up to the school or pick up any calls. Man...that’s not good, huh?_

_Sorry about that folks! I hope you weren’t eating during that and if you were, TOO BAD! Now, onto some better news. Sports—everyone here in the good old NORTH loves sports, right? I seen you crazy assholes at the bars—I’ve been in those fights!_

_The Fhirdiad Blue Lions recently won against the The Enbarr Black Eagles in the National Semi-finals to the World Game! Yeah folks, we did it! We beat those gold-wearing elites in raw strength and pooooweeer! 3 – 1 and that’s nothing to scoff at! You should have seen it folks: we brought our boys home thanks to that last mind blowing home run made by D----_

Felix turned off the radio; he pulled off towards the side of the road in a darkened field of wheat and stars in order to throw up.

He stood at the side of his car, leaning over, and _tried_ to empty his stomach—however, it never came. And the man wondered if that was a good thing. Or if he became apathetic to the whole ordeal. Once Felix finished staring down at the dry ground below him, he shook his head and reluctantly climbed back into his car.

For the rest of the ride, he listened to soft jazz—it was Alois’ favorite. And Felix wondered what the wonderful, laughing man did to earn such a fate. Was it that one time he hugged him at the tournament? Or was it when they went to grab coffee together? Either way, Felix knew he had to buy flowers for the man’s wife and kids soon.

He’ll do his best to comfort them.

Despite Felix’s modest (though Leonie argued was definitely not modest due to his position in the national association) occupation, he lived in a small home outside of the city—an isolated country house sleeping beneath an ocean of stars and a waning moon. It was not that far from the city, but enough where it inconvenienced the mailman terribly and he only showed up at the very end of his route in the afternoon.

The drive alone was nearly half an hour and gas had its own column in his finances.

Felix’s car slowly made its way into the empty dirt driveway and the man stepped up, peering up at the endless sea of stars that graced him overhead. One benefit to living in the countryside was the lack of light pollution: he could actually see the planets from here. He could hear the woods—the earth around him and all of its beauty. He could walk around and see nothing but the extent of Demeter’s reign in the spring.

She must be happy for the season to be this warm and vibrant.

Felix hummed with a weary noise and finally made his way inside the dark country house. The man nearly tripped on the mountain of shoes on his way in and cursed under his breath; too many snow boots and running shoes for his liking—too many pairs covered in mud and grass from endless hikes through the Tailtean Plains. Felix kicked them aside and carefully made his way inside, flicking on all of the lights.

There were leftover bowls of macaroni and cheese from last night’s dinner; the television was left on mindlessly in the living room, turned to the news as blue and red lights flashed into the corridor. Felix passed by it without giving the screen a second look over and went to take a long bath.

As he collected his clothes from the master bedroom, his eyes wearily trained over towards the digital clock on the nightstand; 21:00. He had another hour of freedom before succumbing gently for the rest of the night. Not that Felix had anymore dread as he used to back then—perhaps he had gotten old and everything simply numbed. Or perhaps he went mad and didn’t realize it.

Either way, Felix closed his eyes and forgot himself and the world outside as he sank low into the warm, mineral water of the tub. There were moments, fleeting really, where he thought about sinking lower than his chin. Submerging completely below the depths of the water until it filled his lungs and soaked his brain clean. Until the darkness settled nicely and Felix could feel nothing but a wonderful, long and peaceful slumber.

Felix thought about it. But his body refused to move to the idea; he was not a coward. He was just too sick in the head to ever leave.

Finally, once the clock turned to 22:00, Felix reluctantly left the tub and dried himself. He was too tired and weak to eat and simply staggered through the cool darkness of his home to the large king’s size bed for a long sleep. But he knew he would not be able to until the king returned.

As Felix climbed under the soft, fleece sheets and settled his head against the pillow, his ears keenly caught the sound of a car pulling into the drive through. The crackling of the pebbled against large, hardened tires of a snow truck and the last exhaust of a mighty engine turning off. Felix brought the blankets over his head and buried himself beneath, curling up a bit like a child hiding away from a monster hiding in the closet. He did not understand why he kept doing this—old childhood habit, perhaps? A way to possibly stop the sounds from invading his mind, though it was all pointless.

Felix heard the keys unlock the front door, shutting tightly with a soft, considerable clang. Steps nearly tripping over the mountain of shoes at the foyer, awkward and heavy. The eventual steps to the sink where the water ran for five minutes—the sponge wiping clean all of the food and dishes placed gently on the rack to dry. The news still blared irritably and there was a three second pause before the television went dead.

Silence.

Felix shut his eyes and clutched to the blanket tightly.

Then the heavy steps up the staircase.

He tried to let the darkness steal him away until the morning where he could face a new day. But it refused to spare him, give him mercy. The night was always so cruel to Felix.

The footsteps breached the top and slowly went down the hall—wood creaking submissively against the strength of its master. Edging closer and closer and closer. Then it stopped, right in the open doorway of the bedroom.

Felix waited; he listened, white-faced with blood rushing hotly from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. Those steps eventually, with the gentleness of a loving mother, passed over the invisible border of the hallway and towards the edge of the bed on Felix’s side.

Finally, as always, the blanket was lovingly pulled away, exposing Felix to the warm nighttime air that poured in from the open window. A soft, laughing breath tickling his cheek and Felix—an actor for the last five years of his life, pretended to stir from a feigned sleep.

The king bent low to kiss the man on his cheek before nibbling the exposed skin of his neck, large hands running through Felix’s long, black hair which fanned out of the pillow like a bottle of spilled ink. There was no playfulness left—no attempt at grace. The king was as clumsy and hungry as he was during their first time because he moved with instinct, not with technique.

And there was no cruelty at all but an open, yearning sincerity.

Felix let out a weak groan as a powerful, large body pressed down against him in a loving embrace; he slipped his arms over the king’s heavily muscular and scarred back, welcoming the new weight unconsciously. Even if the gnawing, swollen pressure in his heart wept out with a broken sob.

Felix opened his eyes and looked past the broad shoulders at the glow-in-the-dark stars that littered the ceiling; he had put those there himself when they moved into the country house. A bit silly and especially childish, but the sight of those stars and planets glowing softly in the dim darkness of their bedroom gave Felix strength—enough for another night.

Finally, he heard a voice murmuring deep against his skin, against the lover bites that now decorated his washed neck and collar bone.

“I love you, Felix.”

Who said it? The boy, the prince, or the Earth Goddess? Then again, did it matter when they were all and the same?

“I love you too.” He could barely hear his own voice, but he knew the king could. His strong, killing arms tightened around Felix’s naked form and brought them closer. A loving intensity that made the dark-haired man shudder rather excitedly and he sighed out as a pair of smiling lips captured him in a kiss—teeth clashing gently from a restrained want.

His father always told him that Felix meant lucky. It meant happiness. It meant good fortune. And in that consuming darkness of his gilded cage, Felix wondered with a dry laugh if his father had played a cruel joke on him. Or perhaps this was happiness and he was just too mad to really see it. 

Dimitri, on the other hand. His namesake was more than appropriate.

_Wouldn’t you think so?_

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for my beloved friend, [Pigmi](https://twitter.com/hellopigmi) who won my holiday giveaway on Christmas! I hope you liked this darker, twisted version of Dimilix and I wish you a wonderful new year! 
> 
> I have a [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Meatbike344) if yall wanna come over and have a chatty! I swear, I'm actually nice despite all the dark, messed up shit I write :)


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